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FREE  LAND  and  FREE  TRADE 


THE  LESSONS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CORN 

LAWS    APPLIED    TO     THE 

UNITED  STATES. 


BY 


SAMUEL     S.     COX, 


For  what  avail  the  plough  or  sail, 

Or  land,  or  life,  if. freedom  fail? — Emerson. 


NEW  YORK 

G.    P.   PUTNAM'S    SONS 

27  AND  29  West  23d  Street 

1834 


Copyright  by 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 

1880. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   PURPOSE  OF   THE  BOOK. 

PACK 

Increasing  surplus  of  production  in  the  United  States — Need  of 
foreign  markets — Predominance  of  our  agricultural  interests 
— Freedom  for  land  and  trade  demanded — Teaching  of  the 
English  corn  laws I 

CHAPTER   II. 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH   OF  THE  CORN   LAWS, 

Five  centuries  of  blundering — Fostering  industry  by  restricting 
exports — Class  legislation — Patriotic  taxation — The  bounty 
nostrum — Local  protection  and  its  failure — The  logic  of 
starvation — Revolution 7 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE   HEROIC   METHOD  AND  THE   HEROES. 

The  men  who  fought  the  fight — Sir  Robert  Peel — Charles  Vil- 
liers — Richard  Cobden — John  Bright — Daniel  O'Connell — 
Ebenezer  Elliott i8 

CHAPTER .  IV. 

ORGANIC  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  CORN   LAWS. 

The  logic  of  restriction  on  export — Alternate  abundance  and 
scarcity — High  profits  and  ruinous  losses — Bounties  and  who 
pay  them — Diversion  from  profitable  to  unprofitable  indus- 
try— Nature's  provision  against  fluctuations 25 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V. 

INDEPENDENCE    AND   INTER-DEPENDENCE. 

PAG8 

War  and  home  supplies — Independence  a  vagary — Foreign  expe- 
rience and  the  coast  line  of  the  United  States — Independ- 
ence and  unfruitful  labor — Results  of  free  trade  in  England 
— Comparison  with  American  system 31 

CHAPTER   VI. 

SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS. 

Impoverishment  of  the  wage  class — Increase  of  pauperism  and 
crime — Physical  deterioration — Corruption  of  public  morals 
— Disintegration  of  the  state 40 

CHAPTER   VII. 

PLEAS   FOR  THE   DEFENSE. 

Protection  due  to  particular  classes — Plundering  customers  to 
stimulate  trade — The  revenue  pretext — Hundreds  to  the 
government,  millions  to  the  monopolists — Application  to 
United  States — Vested  rights  and  vested  wrongs 47 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

ENGLAND'S  PRESENT  LAND  TROUBLES. 

Rise  of  new  conditions  since  the  repeal — Enslavement  of  the 
land — Relics  of  the  feudal  system — The  cultivator  barred 
from  ownership  in  the  soil — American  competition — An  un- 
certain future 54 

CHAPTER   IX. 

IRELAND  ;  HER  LAND  TROUBLES  AND   THEIR  ORIGIN. 

Early  Irish  tenure — Plunder  of  the  land  in  the  Elizabethan  wars 
— The  Cromwellian  settlement — Religious  persecutions — 
England's  oppressive  trade  policies — Suppression  of  Irish 
industry  and  commerce 62 


CONTENTS.  vii 

CHAPTER   X. 

IRISH  LAND — WRONGS  AND   REMEDIES. 

PA(5E 

The  land  monopoly — Absenteeism — Primogeniture  and  settle- 
ments— Insecurity  of  tenure — Discouragement  of  improve- 
ments— Barriers  against  alternative  industries— Free  land 
the  radical  remedy ...     70 

CHAPTER    XI. 

LEGALIZED     ROBBERIES. 

Theft  and  reprisal — "A  free  breakfast  table  " — Mutual  brigand- 
age— Pauper  labor — Protection  against  the  sun — Terrible 
evils  of  foreign  water  power 78 

CHAPTER   XII. 

PANICS  AND   CRISES   AS  AFFECTED   BY   FREE  TRADE. 

Causes  of  England's  misfortunes — Queries  for  the  American  pro- 
tectionist— England's  speculative  fever — The  tariffs  of  the 
United  States,  Germany  and  Holland — Agricultural  dis- 
tress      35 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

OUR   AGRICULTURAL  OPULENCE  AND   DOMINANCE, 

Our  increasing  exports — The  protectionist  argument  not  borne 
out  by  the  facts — Our  surplus  comes  from  the  land — No 
thanks  to  protection — America's  opportunity t^8 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

FREE  TRADE  FOR  THE  UNITED   STATES. 

The  needs  of  other  lands — Our  ability  to  supply  them — Who  the 
the  tariff  tinkers  are — Inconsistency  of  protectionists — The 
patient  taxpayer — Conditions  of  reform lo; 

CONCLUSION. 

THE  FUTURE  OF   KKEE   LAND  FREE  TRADE 11/ 


FREE   LAND   AND   FREE   TRADE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   PURPOSE   OF  THE   BOOK. 

"  The  request  of  Industry  to  the  goverument  is  as  modest  as  that  of  Dio- 
genes to  Alexander  ; — Stand  out  of  my  sunshine."  Bentham. 

Increasing  surplus  of  production  in  the  united  states — 
Need  of  foreign  markets — Predominance  of  our  agri- 
cultural INTERESTS — FREEDOM  FOR  LAND  AND  TRADE  DE- 
MANDED— Teaching  of   the  English  corn  laws. 

THE  thesis  of  this  book  is,  the  necessity  of  en- 
larged foreign  markets  for  the  surplus  of  pro- 
duction from  farm  and  factory  in  the  United  States. 

We  are  rapidly  out-growing  the  notion  that  a 
monopoly  of  the  home  market  is  all  we  need  ;  and 
that  it  would  be  as  well  for  us  if  our  borders  were 
surrounded  by  oceans  of  fire.  The  fatness  of  the 
land  is  forcing  us  to  broader  views,  our  amazing 
natural  wealth  is  compelling  us  to  the  alternatives  of 
yielding  the  policy  of  selfishness  or  being  choked 
with  our  own  abundance. 

Subordinate  to  this  chief  theme — part  and  parcel 
of  it  really — is  that  of  the  land  and  the  danger  of 
shackling  in  any  way  the  wealth-producing  forces 
that  he  within  it.     Slight  as  has  been  the  attention 


2  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

thus  far  given  this  subject,  it  is  bound  to  press  more 
and  more  upon  the  thoughts  of  the  country.  What 
does  the  Granger  movement  signify,  what  do  the  in- 
vestigations into  railway  discriminations  and  combin- 
ations mean,  but  that  the  pressure  of  chains  on  the 
land  are  beginning  to  be  felt  both  on  the  farm  and  in 
the  busy  centres  of  trade  ? 

Is  it  not  high  time  to  take  a  new  horoscope  from 
the  facts  presented  in  these  broad  fields  ?  The  fail- 
ure of  the  bread  and  meat  stuffs  of  the  trans-atlantic 
countries  ;  the  providential  increase  of  our  own  pro- 
duction from  the  land  ;  the  condition  of  land  tenure 
in  Great  Britian  and  Ireland  ;  the  unproductive  con- 
sumption and  exhaustion  of  the  products  of  the  soil 
by  the  large  standing  armies  of  Europe  ;  the  progress 
of  this  country  in  almost  every  line  of  industrial 
effort,  give  vital  interest  to  the  discussion  proposed. 

The  forces  of  production  are  labor,  capital  and 
land.  The  census  of  1880  will  show  at  least 
49,000,000  inhabitants  in  the  United  States.  It  will 
reveal  a  less  rate  of  decennial  increase  than  in  former 
periods  ;  but  much  greater  than  between  i860  and 
1870,  when  it  was  only  22|^  per  cent.  Immigration 
is  increasing  from  causes  set  forth  in  the  volume. 
We  shall  not  want  therefore  for  the  first  factor  of 
wealth.  As  for  our  capital,  we  have  an  assuring  in- 
dication in  the  fact  that  New  York  has  long  been  the 
second  money  centre  of  the  world,  and  its  rivalry 
with  London  grows  keener  year  by  year.  Then  as 
to  the  land,  it  is  no  mere  a  priori  guess  that  while 
we  have  an  area  of  territory  larger  than  any  Euro- 
pean state,  except  Russia,  and  a  greater  number  of 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  BOOK.  3 

people  of  one  tongue  than  any  other  nation,  our 
three  millions  square  miles  are  cultivated  as  yet  only 
in  the  proportion  of  one  fourth.  But  we  are  enlarg- 
ing that  proportion  rapidly.  We  are  moving  west- 
ward with  giant  strides,  to  the  rich  alluvial  soils 
whence  come  our  wealth. 

Our  wealth  is  not  in  our  mines  of  silver,  gold  or 
coal.  These  may  be  inexhaustible  ;  yet  they  are 
only  auxilliaries  to  our  fruitful  and  boundless  acreage. 
The  magnitude  and  variety  of  our  soils,  ranging  from 
the  colder  to  the  warmer  latitudes,  embrace  every 
kind  of  grain  and  food  ;  while  the  garden  and  or- 
chard are  as  abundant  as  our  sugar  and  vine  fields. 
Our  energy  and  skill  harness  every  appliance  of 
mechanical  force  to  plant,  gather,  and  garner  the 
amazing  result.  And  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  the  value  of  the  direct  product  aggregates  two 
thousand  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  per  year. 

Compared  with  our  other  industries  how  immense 
are  those  which  deal  with  the  simple  fruits  of  the 
soil!  Even  in  regard  to  cotton,  if  the  statistics  of 
manufacture  show  anything — as  in  1878 — they  show 
that  we  export  nearly  two  thirds  of  our  cotton  in 
the  lint,  leaving  about  one  third  for  home  manufac- 
ture. Of  the  latter,  ninety-six  per  cent  is  used  at 
home  for  clothing  our  own  people. 

The  native  wealth  of  our  soil  is  inexhaustible,  yet 
we  shall  be  foolish  if  we  therefore  suffer  our  indus- 
trial system  to  "  take  care  of  itself" — i.  e.,  be  shaped 
by  those  who  have  their  own  designs  to  further. 
Other  countries  have  been  richly  endowed  ;  yet 
aristocratic    privileges,    landlordism,    primogenitive 


4  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE   TRADE. 

succession  and  other  forms  of  monopoly  have  been 
suffered  to  fix  themselves  upon  the  land,  and  its 
richness  has  been  pressed  out  of  it.  Is  the  danger 
for  us  a  mere  vagary  ?  What  of  the  railroad  mono- 
poly ?  Can  any  one  affirm  that  the  land  in  the 
United  States  is  free,  when  so  much  of  the  profit  in 
remunerative  prices  is  absorbed  by  transportation 
charges  ?  Are  not  freight  combinations  and  the 
like  only  a  change  in  the  form — is  it  not  feudality 
and  landlordism  still  ? — the  conspiring  of  class  in 
terest  against  the  common  weal? 

This  evil,  however,  has  been  held  in  check  to 
a  considerable  degree.  The  source  of  the  injus- 
tice, when  injustice  is  done,  is  so  obvious,  that  the 
rebellious  sufferers  at  once  attack  the  real  op- 
pressor. The  people  are  waking  up  in  all  the 
States,  and  the  railways  are  on  the  defensive.  But 
there  is  another  danger  which  does  not  approach  so 
openly. 

Briefly  stated,  it  is  this  ;  that  we  are  rapidly  out- 
growing the  market  to  which  our  tariff  walls  practi- 
cally limit  us.  Here  is  the  question  : — When  our 
land  really  shows  its  splendid  opulence,  when  our 
acreage  is  increased  both  for  cattle  and  grain,  is  the 
inevitable  surplus  over  the  home  and  foreign  demand 
to  remain  with  us  to  glut  the  market  ? 

I  say  nothing  now  of  our  manufactures.  These 
have  risen  from  $44  per  capita  in  1850  to  $111  per 
capita  in  1870,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
want  of  an  outlet  for  the  heavy  surplus  was  one  of 
the  leading  causes  of  the  industrial  distress  which 
began  in  1873.     With  scarcely  any  increase  in  the 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  BOOK. 


5 


plant,  the  mills  of  the  country  might  turn  out  dou- 
ble and  triple  their  present  product. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  debate  this  point ;  as  to 
the  soil  there  can  be  no  dispute.  What  is  to  be  the 
result  here  of  the  rapid  opening  up  of  the  rich  farm- 
ing and  grazing  lands  of  the  West  and  Southwest  ? 
Our  export  of  wheat  in  1879  figured  in  value  to  no 
less  than  $160,000,000;  corn,  $40,000,000;  hams  and 
bacon,  $51,000,000  ;  lard,  nearly  $23,000,000  ;  cheese, 
$12,000,000;  butter,  $5,000,000.  What  will  be  the 
end  of  this  amazing  development  of  our  native  riches? 
Will  our  surplus  go  to  other  nations,  carrying  bene- 
fits and  bringing  benefits  in  return,  or  for  lack  of 
those  mutual  conditions  which  make  trade  possible,  is 
the  flood  of  good  things  to  be  dammed  in  its  passage 
and  flung  back  upon  us  to  destroy  and  be  destroyed  ? 

These  are  questions  which  vehemently  press  for 
answer.  Every  farmer  from  the  Red  River  of  the 
North  to  the  Teche  is  interested  in  them  ;  and  not 
less — if  he  realizes  the  true  relations  of  his  trade — 
every  manufacturer  who  has  not  the  fortune  to  pos- 
sess a  monopoly. 

We  must  have  the  opportunity  and  privilege, — 
the  liberty, — to  trade.  We  cannot  sell,  without 
buying.  Our  crude  product  is  now  nearly  ninety 
per  cent  of  our  exports  ;  but  will  even  that  continue  ? 
If  England  should  place  restrictions  on  the  importa- 
tion of  our  cereals  and  beef,  reenact  her  corn  laws, 
what  would  be  the  effect  on  us  ;  and  especially  in 
case  the  good  years  for  crops  should  return  to  her 
and  the  continent  ?  Where  then  would  be  our 
market  ? 


6  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

This  book  proposes  to  consider  these  problems 
in  the  light  of  experience.  Political  economy,  both 
as  an  inductive  and  as  a  deductive  science,  sur- 
vives the  sneers  of  the  ignorant  and  the  satire  of  the 
selfish ;  but  of  all  the  weapons  which  its  armory  fur- 
nishes, the  argument  from  completed  results  seems 
most  effective.  Writers  of  other  countries,  notably 
France  and  Germany,  have  given  studies  of  compara- 
tive statistics  from  the  ground  of  international  econ- 
omy. The  author  proposes  one  simple  text:  the 
corn  laws  of  England.  The  history  of  their  enact- 
ment, their  application  and  their  repeal,  is  a  presenta- 
tion at  once  compact  and  exhaustive  of  the  protec- 
tive theory  in  its  practical  working.  There  is  noth- 
ing new  to  be  added  to  the  story.  But  in  the  belief 
that  a  study  of  this  theme  in  relation  to  land  and 
manufactures  in  the  United  States  may  be  of  genu- 
ine service,  I  submit  these  pages  to  an  intelligent 
public. 


CHAPTER   II. 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH   OF  THE   CORN   LAWS. 

"  Careless  of  mankind 

They  lay  beside  their  nectar,  and  the  clouds  are  curled, 
Round  their  golden  houses  girdled  by  the  gleaming  world  ; 
But  they  smile,  they  find  a  music  centred  in  a  doleful  song, 
Like  a  tale  of  little  meaning,  tho'  the  words  are  strong  : 
Chanted  from  an  ill-used  race  of  men  that  cleave  the  soil 
Storing  yearly  little  dues  of  wheat,  and  wine  and  oil." 

Lotus  Eaters. 

Five  centuries  of  blundering — Fostering  industry  by  re- 
stricting EXPORTS — Class  legislation  —  Patriotic  taxa- 
tion— The  bounty  nostrum — Local  protection  and  its 
failure — The  logic  of  starvation — Revolution. 

LET  us  begin  therefore,  at  the  alphabet.  What 
is  corn  ?  To  the  American  it  simply  means 
maize,  and  to  the  unsophisticated  it  may  be  sup- 
posed that  the  corn  laws  of  Great  Britain  pertain 
to  our  Indian  corn.  But  corn  is  a  generic  term, 
signifying  the  grain  or  seed  of  plants,  separated 
from  the  spike  or  ear,  and  used  for  making  bread. 
There  are  different  species  of  corn, — wheat,  rye, 
barley,  oats  and  maize.  These  constitute  the  chief 
necessaries  of  life  in  all  countries.  The  corn  laws, 
therefore,  were  laws  which  regulated  trade  in 
corn. 

The  history  of  the  corn  laws  of  England  covers 
nearly  five  centuries.     It  will  be  convenient  to  study 


8  '    FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

it  in  periods  ;  of  which  four  may  be  carved  out  with 
sufficient  definiteness,  each  marked  with  its  distinct 
characteristic. 

I.  1 360-1688.     Restriction  of  Exports. 

Doubtless  the  first  regulations  about  corn  in 
Great  Britain  were  well  intended.  Their  purpose 
was  to  procure  abundance  and  cheapness.  In  the 
earliest  eras  of  that  legislation,  England  was  more  of 
an  agricultural,  than  a  mauufacturing  country, — she 
raised  all  the  corn  she  consumed  and  had  a  surplus. 
Hence  any  laws  at  that  time  against  the  importa- 
tion of  corn  would  have  been  inoperative.  But  they 
were  not  enacted. 

On  our  federal  statute  book  we  have,  strange  to 
say,  with  our  millions  of  surplus,  a  tariff  ostensibly 
designed  to  restrict  the  importation  of  corn.  Of 
course  it  is  an  unsubstantial  sop  to  Cerberus.  Eng- 
land was  not  as  foolish  as  that  in  her  corn  legisla- 
tion. Her  policy  at  this  early  period  was  to  restrict 
exportation  and  thus  make  the  food  supply  plentiful 
and  cheap.  Imagine  an  American  statesman,  in 
our  Congress,  introducing  a  law  to  make  bread 
cheap  by  forbidding  the  surplus  of  California  or 
Minnesota  from  going  abroad !  The  world  does 
move. 

The  first  English  statute  was  in  the  time  of  the 
third  Edward,  in  1360.  It  forbade  exportation.  In 
1394  exportation  was  allowed  on  conditions.  In 
1436  an  act  was  passed  permitting,  exportation  of 
wheat  whenever  the  price  should  fall  to  6s.  8d.  per 
quarter,  and  of  barley  whenever  the   price  should 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  CORN  LA  WS.       g 

drop  to  3s.  4d.  It  was  not  until  1463  that  the  first 
glimpse  of  -the  protective  policy  dawned,  in  a  legis- 
lative effort  to  ward  off  the  competition  of  the  conti- 
nent. Importation  was  prohibited  unless  the  domes- 
tic prices  should  exceed  those  named  in  the  law  of 
1436.  In  1562  the  price  at  which  exportation  could 
take  place  was  extended.  In  1571  duties  were  im- 
posed on  exportation.  This  act  gave  some  freedom 
to  the  trade,  although  it  was  limited.  These  regula- 
tions were  variously  modified  at  different  times,  but 
not  essentially  altered.  In  1670  the  export  duty  was 
reduced  to  encourage  cultivation,  while  a  heavy  duty 
amounting  to  prohibition  was  imposed  on  imported 
corn. 

Now  while  we  see  in  all  this  shifting  legislation, 
under  our  present  lights,  a  few  gleams  of  good 
sense, — 

"  Little  gloomy  lights,  much  like  a  shade," — 

we  perceive,  through  all,  that  England  was  sowing 
the  seeds  of  future  misery.  She  was  teaching  her- 
self that  the  natural  forces  of  industry  and  trade 
could  not  be  trusted  to  bring  about  the  best  devel- 
opments; she  was  forming  the  habit  of  meddling 
and  tinkering  with  the  delicate  growth  of  the  indus- 
trial system  ;  she  was  accustoming  herself — worst  of 
all — to  the  spectacle  of  a  favored  class  manipulating 
the  capital  and  labor  of  the  entire  country  for  its 
own  ends,  yet  in  the  name  of  the  country  and  on 
pretext  of  the  highest  patriotism.  Everything  was 
done  at  the  behest  and  for  the  aggrandizement  of 
the  landed  proprietors.     Destructive  as  that  legisla- 


lO  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

tion  has  proved  to  be  to  this  very  landed  interest,  it 
is  nevertheless  true  that  the  self-seeking  of  the  great 
families  was  the  source  of  its  inspiration. 

The  lesson  of  the  corn  laws,  therefore,  up  to 
1688  (in  which  year  England  taught  so  many  truths 
of  civil  and  political  freedom),  is  the  lesson  which  is 
taught  us, — or  which  would  be  taught  us  if  we  would 
open  our  eyes, — by  the  similar  supremacy  of  a  class 
in  this  country,  and  the  course  of  legislation  enforced 
under  their  domination.  The  manufacturers  of  the 
United  States  are  not  a  powerful  order  in  point  of 
numbers,  yet  they  have  been  poyverful  enough,  by 
their  combinations  and  through  the  opportunity  of 
the  common  blindness  and  indifference,  to  throttle 
both  commerce  and  agriculture,  and  keep  the  whole 
people  under  tribute  to  their  alleged  necessities.  As 
with  the  English  landed  proprietors,  also,  their  selfish 
efforts,  however  successful  in  putting  money  into  the 
pockets  of  a  few,  have  resulted  in  crippling  the  in- 
dustries they  were  designed  to  make  strong. 

II.  1688-1773.  Fostering  by  Bounties. 
The  next  era  may  be  called  the  bounty  era — run- 
ning from  1688  to  1773.  The  plan  of  protecting  the 
favored  interest  by  direct  payment  from  the  public 
treasury  was  the  feature  of  the  legislation  of  this 
period.  Before  detailing  it,  however,  it  will  be  worth 
while  to  notice  the  course  of  a  subsidiary  movement, 
which  at  once  illustrates  the  selfishness  and  the  short- 
sightedness of  class  government.  The  country  gen- 
try, herding  around  such  ministers  as  Walpole,  and 
themselves  the  lords  of  their  several  groups  of  "  corn 


HISTORICAL  SKE  TCH.  OF  THE  CORN  LA  WS.      \  i 

fed  yeomanry,"  were  never,  perhaps,  more  grasping 
than  then.  One  of  their  efforts  to  enrich  themselves, 
was  an  internal  protective  system,  based  on  the 
notion  that  if  the  consumer  CQuld  be  forced  to  buy 
directly  from  the  grower,  the  profits  of  the  middle- 
men would  fall  to  the  land.  It  was  made  a  penal 
offense  to  buy  corn  in  one  market  to  dispose  of  it  in 
another.  The  system  was  like  that  of  the  octroi 
duties  prevailing  in  certain  countries  of  Europe ; 
where  every  locality  had  its  tax, — against  the  income 
of  the  surrounding,  and  the  outgo  of  the  local  pro- 
duct. The  regulations  worked  only  ill,  of  course. 
The  crowding  out  of  middle  men  by  some  better 
method  of  discharging  their  functions  is  one  thing; 
the  attempt  to  anihilate  them  by  law  is  quite  another. 

I  have  seen  a  law  passed  in  Congress,  to  prevent 
traffic  in  gold.     It   was   offered  by    Mr.   Thaddeus 
Stevens,  the  first  year  of  the  war;  but  it  was  repealed, 
even  before  it  was  jjrinted,  in  a  few  days  after  its  en 
actment. 

We  need  not  to  be  too  critical  upon  the  men  of 
that  early  English  period.  It  is  strange,  indeed, 
that  the  agriculturist  could  not  at  once  see  how 
insignificant  were  the  profits  to  be  screwed  out  of 
the  local  consumers,  compared  with  the  freely  given 
remuneration  of  a  greater  market.  But  is  the  blind- 
ness which  exists  to-day  less  strange? 

The  octroi  system  was  only  broken  by  the  logic 
of  events.  The  truth  became  more  and  more  ap- 
parent under  actual  experience  figured  in  pounds, 
shillings  and  pence,  until,  in  1773,  every  vestige  of 
internal  restriction    was  effaced    from   the   English 


12  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

statute  book.  In  other  words,  the  protective  system 
failed  ;  free  trade  was  established  within  the  circuit 
of  the  country's  borders. 

We  pass  now  to  the  bounty  element  which  dis- 
tinguished this  period.  The  era  was  a  revolutionary 
one.  William  III  had  ascended  the  throne  through 
the  powerful  interests  of  the  agriculturists.  The 
land  owners  were  prompt  to  get  their  advantages. 
They  procured  the  bounty  act  of  1689 ; — ■which 
provided  that  wherever  wheat  should  be  at  or  below 
forty-eight  shillings,  there  should  be  a  bounty  of 
five  shillings  allowed  on  its  exportation.  What 
was  the  effect  of  this  bounty  on  exportation  ?  It 
led  to  extensive  cultivation,  and  hence  lowered  the 
price.  Wheat  sold  lower  seventy  years  after  th-e 
bounty  than  it  had  seventy  years  before.  Expor- 
tation largely  increased — and  the  tax-payers  made 
good  the  loss  !  This  is  the  protectionist  plan  of 
prosperity.  In  ten  years,  1740  to  1750,  the  bounties 
amounted  to  $7,500,000.  Of  course  this  came  from 
the  people.     It  could  come  from  no  other  source. 

In  most  of  our  tariff  discussions  in  Congress, 
during  and  since  the  war,  those  of  us  who  took  part 
in  the  debates,  fixed  this  one  fact,  eo  nomine,  as  to 
bounty,  indelibly  upon  the  record.  It  was  the  price 
which  the  people  paid  for  the  lush  growth  of  unre- 
munerative  labor.  In  our  case,  agriculture  paid  the 
most  of  it,  to  the  "  splendid  paupers  "  who  grasped 
it  in  their  enormous  duties  on  manufactured  ar- 
ticles. 

The  simplest  query  which  can  be  asked  of  the 
protectionist  is :  Why  should  one  man  in  one  trade 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS. 


13 


have  a  bounty  given  to  him  for  his  encouragement, 
and  not  another  man  in  another  occupation  ?  Why 
should  that  other  be  compelled  to  pay  that  bounty 
to  his  neighbor,  when  his  neighbor  pays  no  bounty 
to  him  ?  And  if  his  neighbor  does  pay  an  equal 
bounty  to  him,  where  is  the  benefit  ?  The  hatter 
gives  a  dollar  a  year  to  the  shoemaker  to  foster  the 
shoe  trade,  and  the  shoemaker  responds  with  a  dol- 
lar a  year  to  the  hatter  to  foster  the  hat  trade. 
Where  is  the  gain,  where  is  the  sense  ?  Is  it  not 
obvious  that  a  tax  to  be  protective  must  be  unjust  ; 
it  must  take  from  one  class  to  give  to  another  with- 
out return.  That  is  what  protection  means  ;  and 
that  is  what  bounties  signify. 

After  1769,  the  agriculturist  was  still  waxing 
greater  and  greater  in  English  politics,  but  the 
manufacturing  and  commercial  interests  were  ex- 
tending also.  The  peace  of  1763  with  France  had 
increased  the  English  colonial  possessions.  New 
avenues  of  wealth  began  to  open  on  every  side. 
Commerce  begat  capital ;  capital  was  invested  in 
manufactures;  and  population  increased  in  an  un- 
precedented way.  The  nation  received  a  tremendous 
impulse  of  prosperity.  How  was  corn  affected  in 
trade  and  legislation  by  this  new  era  of  prosperity  ? 
Consumption  increased  enormously,  and  prices  rose 
in  corresponding  measure.  Importation  of  grain  was 
prohibited.  The  corn  monopoly  was  complete,  and 
the  door  of  opportunity  opened  the  way  to  un- 
bounded wealth. — Did  it  ?  The  monopolists  surely 
thought  so,  and  the  wheat  price-list  seemed  indis- 
putable evidence.     But  they  deceived  themselves, — 


/ 


14  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

even  as  the  protectionists  of  this  enlightened  age  de- 
ceive themselves.  The  price  list  is  an  elastic  meas- 
ure. The  swollen  figures  on  it  may  be  coincident 
with  poverty.  The  land  owners  were  not  as  well 
off  as  they  thought  they  were, — and  they  were  pre- 
paring for  themselves  bitter  revenges. 

III.  1 773- 1 8 1 5 .     Protection  and  Starvation. 

The  next  era  is  from  1773  to  1815.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  this  era  the  tide  had  turned  somewhat 
in  the  direction  of  less  restricted  trade. 

In  1773  the  city  of  London  offered  a  bounty  of 
four  shillings  for  twenty  thousand  quarters  on  im- 
portation— a  local  but  very  significant  effort  to 
counteract,  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  monopolists. 

In  1774  a  more  generous  national  policy  was 
adopted.  The  duty  on  importation  was  fixed  at  six 
shillings  for  wheat  above  forty-eight  shillings,  and 
when  the  price  exceeded  forty-four  shillings,  expor- 
tation was  forbidden  and  bounties  withdrawn.  The 
design  of  this  complicated  law  was  to  prevent  such 
great  fluctuations  as  had  taken  place.  It  succeeded. 
Corn  became  practically  free,  from  1773  to  1790,  and 
prices  were  steady  to  an  unprecedented  degree. 
Agriculture  was  not  injured.  On  the  contrary,  five 
hundred  thousand  acres  of  waste  lands  were  redeemed 
during  this  period. 

Still  agriculturists  were  dissatisfied,  and  unhap- 
pily for  themselves  and  the  country,  they  were  the 
ruling  interest   in   legislative   councils.     Their   sup- 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS.      15 

port  was  necessary  not  only  to  Lord  North's  Ameri- 
can policy,  but  to  all  his  other  policies." 

They  began  to  meddle  with  the  sliding  scale 
tariff  for  their  own  advantage,  promising  meanwhile 
prosperity  to  the  whole  nation.  The  corn  laws  were 
subjected  to  a  variety  of  manipulations,  each  altera- 
tion marked  with  the  feature  of  a  rise  in  the  pro- 
tective price.  The  effort  to  outwit  the  natural  laws 
of  trade  failed,  as  it  must  always  fail.  Food  became 
dear,  but  dear  food  did  not  bring  high  wages.  The 
economic  forces  worked  on  resistlessly  despite  the 
suave  promises  of  the  protectionists.  Riots  were 
common  in  the  agricultural  districts.  The  laboring 
masses  were  ground  harder  and  harder. 

The  war  with  France,  the  derangement  of  the 
currency,  Napoleon's  commercial  code,  natural  scarc- 
ity, and  other  causes,  had  combined  to  keep  up  the 
high  price  of  food  ;  but  when  all  this  was  changed, 
when  food  might  have  been  plentiful  before  hungry 
mouths,  the  monopolists  only  fought  the  more  for 
their  baneful  privileges. 

A  flood  of  corn  in  18 13  was  the  signal  for  a  most 
bitter  contest  between  the  producing  or  landed  in- 
terest, and  the  consumer  of  grain.  As  a  politico- 
economic  battle  it  was  unexampled  for  its  fierceness. 
It  had  almost  the  vivacity  of  melo-drama,  and,  in 
many  of  its  scenes,  the  agony  of  tragedy.  The  toil- 
ers paraded  their  gaunt,  famine-wasted  skeletons — 
among  them  even  the  laborers  and  tenantry  from 
the  very  farms  whence  came  the  rich  livings  of  the 
landlords — calling  upon  all  to  witness  what  the  greed 
of  the  wealthy  was  doing  for  them.    The  strife  seemed 


/ 


1 6  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE, 

vain.  Wages  declined;  rents  advanced.  The  rich 
grew  richer,  the  poor  grew  poorer.  Yet  the  revolu- 
tion was  coming  on  irresistibly. 

IV.  i8 1 5-1846.     Revolution. 

The  last  period  may  be  taken  from  18 15  to  1846, 
when  the  corn  laws  were  abolished.  This  period 
began  in  desperation  ;  but  it  ended  in  the  brightest 
hope !  It  was  a  night,  but  a  night  thick  with  stars, 
and  it  ended  with  the  morning! 

The  success  obtained  by  the  opponents  of  protec- 
tion was  at  first  limited  and  temporary.  In  18 15  the 
landed  interest  was  still  dominant  in  Parliament. 
Under  great  excitement,  that  body  dared  to  permit 
freedom  from  duty  to  warehoused  corn,  while  it  for- 
bade importation  for  consumption,  except  upon  a 
fixed  average  price.  The  hungry  population  were 
roused  to  fury.  Parliament  was  menaced.  Its  halls 
had  to  be  protected  by  a  military  force. 

This  law  marked  the  culmination  of  the  protective 
corn  legislation.  From  this  time,  each  succeeding 
step  was  an  approach  toward  genuine  principles  of 
economy. 

But  the  protectionists  did  not  know  that  they 
had  overstepped  the  limit  of  toleration.  The  usual 
jargon  was  still  talked  to  pacify  the  outraged  people. 
The  new  law  would  keep  up  prices,  and  thus  enable 
the  farmer  to  pay  good  rents  and  high  wages.  The 
same  tale  that  is  told  to-day  !  Make  the  necessaries 
of  life  scarce  and  dear,  and  the  working  people  will 
somehow  be  entirely  happy. 

The  law  did  not  keep  up  prices.     The  fluctua- 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF   THE  CORN  LAWS. 


17 


tions  ran  violently  through  a  scale  covering  two  hun- 
dred per  cent.  Renewed  distress  was  the  conse- 
quence, and  the  experiments  made  to  relieve  it  in 
1822,  1825  and  1826  proved  all  unavailing. 

Starvation  has  a  cold,  sharp  logic,  which  cuts  like 
steel. 

It  began  to  be  questioned  whether  all  kinds  of 
legislation  upon  bread  taxing  were  not  fruitful  of 
misery.  Men  gathered  at  ale  houses,  corners,  and  in 
factories,  and  wondered  why  they  had  been  so  long 
blind. 

The  pressure  of  public  opinion  was  seen  in  a  mul- 
titude of  legislative  make-shifts,  acts  and  orders.  The 
clamor  of  the  people  rose  louder  and  louder.  They 
felt, — they  saw  that  their  very  lives  were  at  stake. 

To  save  them,  there  appeared  in  the  lists  no 
feudal  knight  surrounded  by  gorgeous  pageantry ; 
only  the  genius  of  Scotch  economy,  directed  by  the 
benevolence  of  pure  reason  ! 

The  end  began  with  a  new  sliding  scale  system — 
championed  by  Canning  and  Grant.  The  aristocracy 
prophesied  the  ruin  of  the  country.  They  were 
ignored.  The  great  Duke  of  Wellington  threw  his 
sword  into  the  scale.     In  vain  ! 

A  new  class  of  men  now  come  upon  the  English 
forum.  They  penetrate  St.  Stephens.  They  agitate 
on  the  hustings.  They  move  parliament.  They  are 
led  in  song  by  Ebenezer  Elliott,  in  oratory  by  Cob- 
den  and  Bright,  and  in  legislative  warfare  by  Mr. 
Villiers  of  Wolverhampton, — the  most  princely  of  all 
the  princely  knights  who  broke  lances  with  landlord- 
ism for  repeal ! 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  HEROIC  METHOD  AND  THE  HEROES. 

"  I  shall  leave  a  name  execrated  by  every  monopolist  who,  from 
less  honorable  motives,  clamors  for  protection  because  it  conduces 
to  his  own  individual  benefit  ;  but  it  may  be  that  I  shall  leave  a 
name  sometimes  remembered  with  expressions  of  good-will  in  the 
abodes  of  those  whose  lot  it  is  to  labor,  and  to  earn  their  daily  bread 
by  the  sweat  of  their  brow,  when  they  shall  recruit  their  exhausted 
strength  with  abundant  and  untaxed  food,  the  sweeter  because  it  is 
no  longer  leavened  by  the  sense  of  injustice." 

Sir  Robert  Peel. 


The  men  who  fought  the  fight — Sir  Robert  peel — Charles 
viLLiERS — Richard  cobden — John   bright — Daniel  o'con- 

NELL — EbENEZER   ELLIOTT. 


THE  men  who  fought  the  fight  for  the  repeal  of 
the   corn   laws  make   up  a  singularly  notable 
company. 

There  is  a  long  roll  of  these  worthies,  and  some 
of  them  are  not  Englishmen.  The  anti-slavery  men 
here,  as  well  as  the  free-traders  on  the  continent 
sympathized  with  the  movement.  Cobbett  was  not 
less  enthusiastic  than  Archibald  Prentice, — the 
League's  historian.  W.  J.  Fox,  Hume,  Dr.  Bowring, 
Sir  Thomas  Potter,  Earl  Ducie  and  Brown  of  Liver- 
pool,— but  why  make  the  catalogue  ?  Is  it  not 
enough  to  say  that  Cobden  was  its  chief  orator  and 


THE  HEROIC  METHOD. 


19 


that  Carlyle  was  one  of  its  heroes?  A  few  peaks 
stand  out, — "  in  mien  and  gesture  proudly  eminent." 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  potential  head  of  the  gov- 
ernment, with  one  courageous  stroke,  ending  with 
the  splendid  sentiment  at  the  head  of  this  chapter, 
carried  free  trade.  He  destroyed  himself  politically 
— and  made  his  name  forever  great  on  the  scroll  of 
the  world's  benefactors.  His  action  in  the  crisis  was 
a  fitting  crown  to  his  noble  career.  A  man  as  re- 
.served  as  he  was  profound,  he  had  reasoned  his  way 
through  traditional  bondage  to  an  enlarged  belief, 
but  he  had  not  impressed  the  fact  of  his  change  of 
opinion  upon  his  conservative  constituency.  Nor 
had  the  circumstances  called  for  any  declaration. 
But  suddenly,  the  stress  of  events  forced  upon  him 
the  alternatives  of  sacrificing  his  convictions  or 
abandoning  a  famine-stricken  land  ;  of  playing  with 
the  truth  and  mocking  at  suffering,  or  alienating  the 
constituency  that  honored  liim  and  laying  himself 
open  to  the  charge  of  political  treason.  He  rose  a 
hero  to  the  test.  He  stood  for  right  and  humanity ; 
he  became  a  "  traitor  "  and  is  forever  blessed. 

Mr.  Charles  Villiers  worthily  stands  by  the  great 
prime  minister.  It  was  his  persistent  urgency,  ses- 
sion after  session,  that  renewed  the  contest  until  its 
consummation  in  triumph.  I  saw  him  in  England 
in  185 1,  fresh,  gallant,  industrious  and  persistent. 
He  has  died  recently,  and  the  constituency  which  he 
represented  so  long  and  so  ably  have  honored  them- 
selves and  him  by  erecting  a  monument  to  his  mem- 
ory in  Wolverhampton.  To  him,  more  than  to  Cob- 
den  or  to  Bright,  or  even  to  Sir  Robert  Peel,  is  due 


20 


FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


\/ 


the  long,  patient,  successful  warfare,  which  led  to 
the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  aristocratic  class.  In  his  advocacy  of  the  lib- 
eralities and  humanities  of  free  commerce,  he  ran 
counter  to  his  order  and  braved  the  stigma  which 
attached  to  him  for  his  revolutionary  principles. 
Bringing  in  bill  after  bill  while  others  were  lethargic 
or  weary,  he  never  suffered  the  Commons  to  rest 
until  the  great  end  was  accomplished.  It  was  his 
motion,  on  the  Monday  night  in  February,  1846,  for 
immediate  repeal,  that  gave  the  last  blow  to  the 
greatest  wrong  in  English  history. 

Richard  Cobden,  it  need  not  be  said,  was  the 
leader  among  the  people.  He  was  of  the  people  ; 
the  son  of  a  yeoman  and  brought  up  to  trade.  His 
thorough  business  training  and  his  wide  knowledge 
of  business  needs,  acquired  in  travelling,  while  part- 
ner in  a  Manchester  cotton  mill,  naturally  made  him 
a  dangerous  opponent  in  debate  on  such  a  theme. 
His  style  was  simple,  earnest  and  crystalline.  He 
was  not  ostentatious  ;  yet  none  the  less  powerful. 
The  tide  was  not  more  irresistible. 

John  Bright  survives,  in  all  his  early  vigor.  He 
was  at  this  period  in  the  first  flush  of  his  splendid 
powers.  His  commanding  presence,  resonant  voice, 
Saxon  speech,  and  virile  logic  brought  a  strength  to 
the  cause  whose  value  it  is  not  easy  to  estimate. 
Nor  was  it  any  injury  to  the  influence  and  future 
prospects  of  the  coming  leader  that,  while  his  father 
was  a  Quaker  manufacturer  of  carpets,  he  was  made 
independent  of  political  gains  by  his  wealth.  What 
a  splendid  career  he  began  with  this  Liberty  of  Trade, 


THE  HEROIC  ME  THOD.  2 1 

which  he  is  now  illustrating  with  the  Liberty  of 
Land! 

Nor  ought  it  to  be  forgotten  that  such  men  as 
Daniel  O'Connell  contributed  their  aid  to  the  great 
result.  Speaking  in  1840,  at  Manchester,  O'Connell 
boldly  stated  the  question  thus  : — 

"  If  the  corn  laws  are  good  to  rescue  the  people 
from  wretchedness,  why  do  they  not  rescue  the 
people  of  Ireland  ?  Are  there  not  sixty  or  seventy 
thousand  Irish  in  Manchester,  driven  there  by  desti- 
tution in  their  own  country?  If  the  corn  laws  give 
employment  and  high  wages,  why  do  they  not  give 
them  in  agricultural  Ireland  ? "  Subsequently  he 
asked  what  the  corn  laws  were  for  ?  "  To  put 
money  into  the  pockets  of  the  landlords — not  the 
money  of  the  Russians,  the  Danes  or  the  Swedes, 
but  that  of  their  fellow-countrymen." 

When  such  a  heroic  statesman  could  forget 
all  other  antagonisms  to  join  with  those  I  have 
named,  need  we  marvel  that  the  victory,  begun  in 
1832,  was  achieved  at  last  against  such  tremendous 
forces  ? 

It  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  hymns  and 
rhymes  of  the  blacksmith  poet,  Ebenczer  Elliott, 
had  their  marked  and  popular  effect.  His  muse, 
smutched  though  it  was  by  his  smithy,  had  all  the 
ruggedness  of  the  blows  on  the  anvil. 

He  regarded  his  poems  as  weeds  ;  but,  as  he  said, 
they  sprang  out  of  existing  things.  His  indignation 
at  wrong  could  not  be  restrained.  He  did  not  pre- 
tend to  argue.  He  denounced  with  vigorous  prose 
and  stalwart  style.     Yet,  as  his  verses  show,  he  had 


22  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

a  tender  heart  for  flowers  and  children,  and  abound- 
less  love  of  nature ;  but  the  sight  of  his  class  suffer- 
ing from  cruel  extremes,  because  of  such  God  and 
man  offending  laws  awakened  all  the  powers  of  his 
mind  and  genius. 

No  one,  however  honored  or  titled,  if  in  favor  of 
class  distinctions,  and  chronic  wrongs,  is  exempt  from 
the  fury  of  his  ireful  pen.  Wellington,  is  not  to  him, ' 
the  Great  Duke ;  he  is,  because  a  Bread  Taxer,  by  a 
witless  paraphrase,  called  Blucherloo.  The  aristoc- 
racy of  the  land  have  no  respect  from  the  poet, — be- 
cause they  are  palaced  almoners,  living  off  of  Bread 
taxes.  With  no  end  of  dogmatic  iteration,  he  per- 
sonifies this  class,  as  "  Sir  Bread  Tax  Pauper,  and 
Lady  Betty  Pension."  They  are,  in  the  nomencla- 
ture of  his  invective,  slaves  and  robbers — despicable 
creatures, — Landlord  Devils,  who  tax  the  British 
cake  and  mix  the  bread  with  bran,  and  lacking-  bran, 
with  tears. 

I  have  said  that  he  had  a  tender  heart  under  his 
brawn.  Some  of  his  poems  were  in  an  ambitious 
vein,  and  give  glimpses  of  that  fairy  light  that  never 
was  on  sea  or  land — the  consecration  and  the  poets 
dream  ;  but  even  when  he  sings  of  dew-glistening  Al- 
bion, with  its  woods  and  dropping  caves,  its  linnet, 
red  breast,  lark  and  wren, — there  appears  the  gaunt 
skeleton  of  "  blasted  homes  and  much  enduring  men." 
Then  taste  and  propriety  give  way  before  his  trucu- 
lent and  oracular  utterances.  Passion  lifts  the  arm 
of  strength,  and  the  anvil  chorus  drowns  the  spirit 
ditties  of  his  gentler  Muse.  You  then  feel  the  enor- 
mous power  with  which  he   hates  those  who  made 


THE  HEROIC  METHOD.  23 

bread  dear,  and  labor  cheap,  and  recognize  him  as  a 
factor  in  the  struggle  for  Repeal. 

I  would  not,  out  of  mere  romantic  sentiment  to- 
ward this  poet  of  iron, — this  laureate  of  a  fiscal  revo- 
lution— overate  the  influence  of  his  character,  or 
derogate  from  the  influence  of  others,  less  stalwart 
and  stern.  He  must  have  been  a  man  of  rare  clev- 
erness, since  he  was  the  friend  of  Sir  Edward  Lytton 
Bulwer — who  though  a  tory  Statesman  was  an  ad- 
mirer of  this  poet  of  Nature  ;  and  at  the  same  time, 
a  friend  of  Jeremy  Bentham, — whom  he  calls  "  our 
second  Locke,"  and  to  whom  he  dedicated  his  Corn 
Law  Rhymes. 

Nor  is  it  just  to  aggrandize  too  much  the  labor 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  so  as  to  detract  from  others  who 
labored  in  this  League  of  Love.  Sir  Robert  was  not 
the  only  hero  of  this  bloodless  revolution. 

The  proposition  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  1842, — a 
compromising  measure — was  as  vehemently  attacked 
upon  the  hustings  by  Mr.  Cobden  and  his  indefatiga- 
ble league  of  eloquent  orators,  as  it  was  denounced 
by  Mr.  Villiers  and  his  coadjutors  in  Parliament. 
From  that  time  forward  the  shibboleth  was  total  ab- 
olition. The  proposition  of  Peel,  in  1842,  and  its 
impolicy  was  discussed,  and  its  injustice  stigmatized 
in  every  form,  in  hymns  and  songs,  as  well  as  in  the 
forum  and  press ;  and  by  every  mode  of  inspiring 
and  enlightening  public  opinion. 

The  law  was  assailed  for  its  intrinsic  badness. 
No  compromise  was  to  be  discussed.  The  inde- 
scribable distress  of  the  operatives  and  laborers  of 
England  appealed  to  the  humanities  of  man's  nature. 


24  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

The  fearful  statistics  of  crime  and  poverty  were  col- 
lected and  fired  with  burning  eloquence.  Other 
poetry  than  that  of  Ebenezer  Elliott  bewailed  the 
misery  and  woe  of  the  poor, — as  the  fell  consequence 
of  these  laws.  Every  imaginable  device  was  called 
into  requisition  to  move  the  public  mind  to  demand, 
at  once  and  forever,  the  abolition  of  restrictions 
upon  the  prime  necessary  of  life.  The  agitation 
threatened  the  fabric  of  society.  But  the  year  1842 
was  as  May  sunshine  to  the  hurricane  of  1846. 

Sir  Robert  Peel  had  been  the  staunch  friend  of 
protection  hitherto,  and  always,  but  he  was  not  vain 
enough  to  be  consistent  when  such  excesses  ap- 
peared. How  courageously  he  yielded  to  the  de- 
mands of  that  public  opinion,  which  had  been 
created  through  so  many  throes!  Is  not  this  the 
proudest  part  of  his  biography?  "  The  time  is  ripe 
and  rotten  ripe  for  change," — he  exclaimed,  and  amid 
the  jeers  of  his  own  friends,  he  gave  to  England  the 
cheap  loaf,  which  is  the  sweetest  immortelle  to  his 
memory. 

Comparative  quiet  followed  the  victory.  A 
fear  that  the  future  would  prove  less  favorable  to 
the  consummation  of  that  progressive  policy  which 
had  so  long  been  advancing  toward  free  trade,  crept 
quietly  over  England.  Men  sat  in  trembling  lest 
their  prophecies  might  fail,  and  all  the  resources  of 
their  statesmanship  and  sagacity  be  dissipated.  We 
now  know  what  gigantic  consequences  have  followed. 
It  is  for  us  to  apply  the  lessons  to  our  own  land. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ORGANIC   PRINCIPLES   OF   THE   CORN   LAWS. 

"  Of  seeds  and  plants,  and  what  will  thrive  and  rise. 
And  what  the  genius  of  the  soil  denies. 
This  ground  with  Bacchus,  that  with  Ceres,  suits  ; 
That  other  loads  the  trees  with  happy  fruits  ; 
A  fourth,  with  grass  unbidden,  decks  the  ground. 
Thus  Tmolus  is  with  yellow  saffron  crown'd  ; 
India  black  ebon  and  white  iv'ry  bears, 
And  soft  Idume  weeps  her  od'rous  tears. 
Thus  Pontus  sends  her  beaver-stones  from  far  ; 
And  naked  Spaniards  temper  steel  for  war  ; 
Epirus,  for  the  Elean  Chariot  breeds. 
(In  hopes  of  palms)  a  race  of  running  steeds. 
This  is  the  original  contract ;  these  the  laws 
Impos'd  by  Nature,  and  by  Nature's  cause. 

Virgil  Georgics  Lib.  I.  54-61. 

The  logic  of  restriction  on  export — Alternate  abundancb 
and  scarcity — high  profits  and  ruinous  losses — boun- 
ties and  who  pay  them — diversion  from  profitable  to 

UNPROFITABLE        INDUSTRY — NaTURE'S        PROVISION      AGAINST 
FLUCTUATIONS. 

THE  principles  of  the  corn  laws,  so  far  as  they 
affected  foreign  trade,  had  reference  to  expor- 
tation and  importation. 

The  laws  regarding  exportation  were  of  two 
kinds ;  those  which  prohibited  exportation,  and 
those  which  encouraged  exportation  by  bounty. 

The  Prohibitory  Policy. 

The  plausible  notion  that  the  way  to  make  an 


26  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

abundance  is  to  keep  at  home  all  home  production, 
was  the  ground  of  the  policy  of  prohibiting  expor- 
tation. What  is  the  fallacy  of  this  ?  For  a  season 
it  may  answer  to  prohibit  exportation,  and  thus  pro- 
duce plenty  ;  but  for  a  steady  and  bountiful  supply, 
the  merchant  must  have  the  liberty  to  export  his 
surplus.  If  he  is  not  allowed  this  privilege  in  abun- 
dant years,  what  will  be  the  effect  ?  The  market 
will  be  glutted,  and  the  growers  will  be  injured. 
On  the  following  year,  less  land  or  less  of  a  pecu- 
liar crop  will  be  cultivated ;  scarcity  and  high  prices 
will  follow.  If,  on  that  following  year,  when  little 
is  harvested,  that  little  should  fail,  starvation  is  the 
consequence.  Ruinous  fluctuations,  therefore,  are 
the  consequences  of  legislative  intermeddling  with 
exportation. 

The  effects  of  this  system,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
such  as  to  work  its  own  abrogation. 

The  Bounty  Juggle. 

As  to  the  bounty  policy  :  Its  object  was  to  create 
an  extension  of  the  market.  But  did  this  encourage 
or  affect  agriculture  ?  How  does  it  extend  the  mar- 
ket ?  What  kind  of  extension  is  that  which  pays  a 
bonus  in  order  to  create  an  artificial  demand  ? 
The  consumer  will  give  for  corn  just  what  it  is 
worth.  The  bounty  comes  from  the  government. 
Whence  does  the  government  obtain  the  bounty? 
From  the  people.  Then  the  people  pay  for  the 
encouragement  they  desire  ?  Whence  came  the  im- 
mense amounts  that  were  paid  from  1768  to  1773  on 
account  of  bounties  ?     From  the  tax-payers.     Who 


ORGANIC  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  CORN  LA  WS.     2/ 

are  they?  Why,  most  of  them  were  the  corn 
growers  themselves.  The  agriculturists  paid  for 
their  own  protection. 

Make  the  application  to  this  country,  and  the 
result  is  even  more  ludicrous.  To  suppose  that  a 
nation  can  increase  its  capital  and  production  by 
bounties,  is  to  suppose  that  a  man  may  get  rich  by 
changing  his  money  from  one  pocket  to  the  other. 

Bounties  temporarily  raised  the  price  of  corn. 
They  gave  a  fictitious  stimulus  to  agriculture,  and 
brought  under  cultivation  a  great  quantity  of  bare 
land,  such  as  bogs  and  fens, — which  required  a  great 
deal  more  labor  for  the  production  of  the  same  quan- 
tity of  corn,  than  the  good  land.  Now  the  average 
price  of  corn,  like  that  of  any  other  commodity,  is 
regulated  by  the  quantity,  more  or  less,  of  labor, 
necessary  for  its  production.  Hence,  if  a  people  in- 
vest their  capital  and  employ  their  labor  in  producing 
upon  bad  land,  when  they  might  employ  that  labor 
and  capital  in  departments  of  industry  which  would 
produce  at  a  higher  rate,  that  people  are  wasting 
their  resources  by  just  the  difference  between  the 
cost  of  the  two  separate  products. 

Until  England  set  the  example  of  protection, 
most  countries  favored  importation ;  at  least,  they 
did  not  discourage  it. 

That  England  should  have  led  in  the  self-de- 
structive movement  seems  most  strange ;  that  the 
fulcrum  she  chose  was  corn  could  hardly  be  believed 
now,  were  it  not  written  down  in  indelible  history. 
Do  not  the  great  body  of  the  English  people  dcpeiid 
for  their  daily  bread  on  other  than  agricultural  in- 


28  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

dustry?  They  manufacture  for  the  world.  The 
statistics  of  one  week's  work  in  Manchester,  with  its 
tons  and  tons  of  production,  confound  the  marvels 
of  magic.  What  more  obvious  than  that  England's 
road  to  prosperity  was  in  developing  her  extraordi- 
nary manufactures,  and  buying  from  abroad  the  cheap 
food  with  which  to  sustain  the  armies  of  her  mills 
and  furnaces?  She  learned  the  lesson  in  1846,  and 
is  not  likely  to  forget  it. 

Nature  s  Provision  against  Scarcity. 

But  without  reference  to  the  peculiar  talents  or 
resources  of  any  community,  how  unwise  is  the 
policy  of  rejecting  the  good  things  which  other  com- 
munities would  send  to  us?  It  may  be  asserted  as  a 
general  principle  that  the  wider  in  extent  the  surface 
of  a  country,  the  less  it  is  exposed  to  fluctuations 
and  scarcity  in  the  supply,  especially  of  the  life  ne- 
cessities. Nature,  in  her  entirety,  is  not  fluctuating 
and  uncertain.  To  the  observing  and  thoughtful, 
she  is  uniform  in  this  raising  of  grain.  This  is  a 
promise  made  by  Jehovah  after  the  Deluge : — 
"  while  the  earth  remaineth,  seed-time  and  harvest 
shall  not  cease."  A  general  failure  of  crops  may 
occur  in  a  small  area  like  Great  Britain;  but  in  a 
country  as  large  as  Russia  or  the  United  States  it 
seldom  or  never  occurs.  So  it  has  been  remarked 
that  in  the  United  States,  when  large  crops  are  not 
harvested  east  of  the  Mississippi,  the  farther  West 
teems  with  lavish  abundance.  If  the  South  with- 
holds, the  North  gives  back.     When  applied  to  the 


ORGANIC  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  CORN  LA  WS.    29 

whole  world  the  principle  is  absolute.  History  has 
no  example  of  universal  scarcity.  The  reason  is  ob- 
vious. The  weather  that  is  unfavorable  to  vegeta- 
tion in  one  species  of  soil,  is  frequently  advantageous 
to  it  in  another.  If  moist  soil  follow  from  a  wet 
summer,  dry  rocky  districts  make  luxuriant  crops. 
One  country  like  one  district  is  peculiarly  fitted  for 
the  growth  of  maize,  like  our  Mississippi  Valley ; 
another  for  the  grape,  like  France  or  California;  a 
third  abounds  in  minerals  like  Australia  or  Ne- 
vada; a  fourth  has  inexhaustible  forests,  like  British 
Columbia,  or  Wisconsin.  Virgil  has  beautifully  de- 
scribed this  harmonious  and  varied  dispensation  of 
nature  in  the  significant  lines  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter.  His  cetcrna  fader  a  was  not  a  corn-law 
league,  nor  a  zoU-verein.  The  eternal  laws  and  cov- 
enants to  which  the  poet  refers,  were  laid  by  nature 
on  certain  places,  ever  since  the  flood ;  Impostiit 
natiira  locis.  Out  of  this  deference  to  natural  federa- 
tion, the  poet  says  that  a  laborious  race  of  men  was 
produced.  Thus  Rome  grew  great.  Modern  pro- 
gress, by  telegraph  and  steam,  has  given  miraculous 
meaning  to  these  lines.  They  are  an  illustration,  for 
all  time,  of  the  liberty  of  land  and  trade ;  and  an  in- 
centive to  the  utility  and  dignity  of  the  labor  and 
manhood  which  they  magnify  and  exalt. 

Suppose,  therefore,  that  there  are  no  restrictions. 
Then  the  law  obtains,  that  the  wider  the  extent 
of  surface,  the  less  danger  is  there  of  scarcity, — 
and  the  greater  is  the  supply  of  the  necessaries  and 
convenicncies  of  life. 

Why  should  England  with  her  inestimable  and 


30  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

peculiar  advantages,  have  been  restricted  in  the 
supply  of  corn  to  her  own  soil  ?  Why  should  there 
have  been  embarrassment,  scarcity,  or  starvation 
there  ?  Had  she  not  in  superfluity  the  advantages 
for  producing  what  other  countries  wanted,  and  did 
not  other  countries  teem  with  what  she  wanted  ? 
Why  should  she,  or  any  other  country,  counteract, 
by  restriction  or  prohibition,  the  manifest  benevo- 
lence of  Providence,  whereby  the  excess  of  one  land 
compensates  for  the  deficiency  of  another  ? 


CHAPTER  V. 

INDEPENDENCE  AND   INTER-DEPENDENCE. 

"  Heaven  formed  each  on  other  to  depend 
Bids  each  on  other  for  assistance  call, 
Till  one  man's  weakness  grows  the  strength  of  all, 
Wants,  frailties,  passions,  closer  still  ally 
The  common  interest  or  endear  the  tie." 

POP£. 

War  and  home  supplies — Independence  a  vagary  —  Foreign 
experience  and  the  coast  line  of  the  united  states — 
Independence  a\d  unfruitful  labor  —  Results  of  free 
trade  in  england — comparison  with  american  system. 

IT  was  said  that  the  corn  laws  rendered  the  coun- 
try independent  of  foreign  suppHes. 

Now  in  the  first  place,  why  was  it  necessary  to 
render  the  country  independent  of  foreign  supplies? 
Is  this  only  an  ebullition  of  patriotism  ?  Is  it  a  sage 
argument  in  economy?  Economy  has  reference  to 
cost.  It  has  no  elements  kindred  to  patriotism. 
The  fallacy  deserves  consideration,  not  so  much  from 
its  force,  as  because  its  refutation  enables  one  to 
make  plain  the  principles  of  unrestricted  interchange. 

This  argument  is  most  strenuously  urged  in  con- 
nection with  the  contingency  of  foreign  war: — "  Sup- 
pose we  are  dependent  upon  another  country  for  our 
supplies.  We  fall  into  a  war  with  that  country. 
Where  are  we  then  ? — And  does  not  common  sense 


32  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

enjoin  us  to  be  prepared  always  to  provide  for  our 
wants  from  our  own  soil  ?  " 

The  answer  is  an  entirely  practical  one.  The  ac- 
cusation of"  mere  theory"  cannot  be  brought  against 
it.  It  has  received  again  and  again  the  demonstra- 
tion of  historical  events. 

Even  in  a  time  of  war,  it  is  as  much  for  the  in- 
terest of  the  foreigner  to  sell  to  the  enemy,  as  for 
the  enemy  to  buy.  Holland  was  fed  by  foreign 
grain  through  peace  and  through  war,  and  her  sup- 
plies were  always  abundant  and  her  prices  steady. 
When  the  continental  system  of  Napoleon  was  at 
its  height,  when  it  was  screwed  up  to  the  snapping 
limit, — when  the  magnificient  arbiter  disposed  of  his 
own  brother,  because  that  brother  did  not  act  up  to 
his  principles — England  imported  1,600,000  quarters 
of  corn,  with  800,000  of  this  from  France,  and  the 
rest  from  countries  then  provinces  of  France.  This 
was  during  England's  war  with  France, — with  the 
most'implacable  and  powerful  enemy  that  ever  chal- 
lenged her  arms.  Napoleon,  with  all  his  codes  and 
powers,  was  impotent  to  choke  the  natural  channel 
of  products  to  the  best  market — and  is  it  probable 
that  in  the  future,  a  greater  than  a  Napoleon  will 
arise  ?  Is  it  likely  that  any  war  can  so  blockade  the 
vast  coast  line  of  the  United  States,  as  to  shut  off 
the  supplies  we  may  wish  to  purchase  from  those 
who  will  certainly  wish  to  sell  ? 

When  it  comes  to  the  necessaries  by  which  mil- 
lions live,  no  engines  of  war  and  no  codes  as  to  con- 
traband can  stop  their  influx.  God  never  made 
an  independent  nation,  any  more  than  an  independ 


INDEPENDENCE,  INTER-DEPENDENCE.  33 

ent  man.  England  cannot  be  independent  of  foreign 
supply ; — nor  can  America,  until  we  forget  our 
habits,  and  learn  to  raise  tea,  coffee,  sugar  and  cocoa 
nuts.  Change  the  zones,  and  we  may  be  independent 
in  these  things.  We  can  never  be  independent,  how 
much  so  ever  we  may  manufacture  or  raise.  Does 
not  England  import  her  raw  cotton,  and  other  mate- 
rials, which  employ  millions  of  her  population? 
Upon  their  supply  hangs  the  existence  of  a  large 
part  of  her  people.  Did  the  raising  of  cotton  in 
Egypt,  India  and  in  Central  America,  during  our 
civil'  war,  make  her  independent  of  the  United 
States  for  that  staple  ?  If  it  be  independence  to 
raise  corn  at  a  greater  expense  than  it  can  be  raised 
abroad,  why  may  not  England  raise  cotton  also  ? 
Why  import  tea,  sugar,  coffee  and  timber?  Why 
not  be  absolutely  independent — and  at  the  same 
time  open  up  to  the  people  infinite  fields  of  labor? 
Why  not,  indeed?  Abundant  labor  is  what  we  all 
wish,  is  it  not  ?  The  protectionist  assures  us  that 
this  is  the  fact,  and  do  we  not  endorse  his  words  ? 
We  want  unlimited  work.  We  pray  for  labor.  Why 
should  the  economist  say  to  us  that  we  are  mis- 
taken— that  we  want, — not  abundant  toil,  but  abun- 
dant products  ?  Do  we  not  know  our  own  minds  ? 
And  have  we  not  set  them  down  in  the  black  and 
white  of  our  tariff  laws  ?  Give  us  independence  and 
our  fill  of  strain  and  sweat  ! 

The  English  reformers  did  not  thus  reason,  how- 
ever. They  were  anxious  that  the  fruitfulness  of 
labor  should  be  increased,  not  that  the  toil  itself 
should  be  made  greater  and  harder.     Have  their  ex- 


34  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

pectations  been  realized  ?  Let  the  unimpassioned 
voice  of  the  statistician  reply. 

England  has  met  with  reverses  since  the  corn- 
law  repeal.  That  is  true.  Her  misfortunes  in  trade, 
manufacture,  agriculture  and  finance  have  been  many 
and  severe.  Yet  with  all,  the  fortunes  of  the  masses 
of  her  people  from  1846  to  the  present,  afford  an 
illustration  of  the  benefits  of  the  repeal  and  of  the 
policy  of  international  dependence  and  reciprocity 
which  the  veriest  caviller  will  hesitate  to  attack. 

Giving  the  corn  laws  only  three  years  to  make 
their  effects  felt,  an  analysis  of  the  general  trade 
statistics  of  Great  Britain  yields  such  significant 
results  as  these  : — 

During  the  twenty  years  preceding  1849,  ^^  ^^- 
ports  of  British  and  Irish  productions  had  increased 
33^  per  cent  for  each  decade.  From  1849  to  1859, 
the  increase  was  105  per  cent !  It  is  fair  to  presume 
that  by  1859  English  industry  had  become  adjusted 
to  the  new  conditions.  Nevertheless,  for  the  period 
up  to  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  there  was  an  increase 
of  exports  of  45  per  cent. 

The  value  of  the  exports  per  capita  in  1849,  ^'^^ 
$10.93  ;  in  1859,  it  had  more  than  doubled,  being 
$22.11.     In  1869,  it  had  risen  to  $29.79. 

In  1878,  while  we  Americans  were  making  great 
boast  of  our  exports,  their  value  per  capita  was 
only  $12. 

The  expansion  of  the  tonnage  of  the  British 
mercantile  marine  is  not  pleasant  reading  for  Amer- 
icans ;  but  it  belongs  to  the  story.  The  figures 
in   1840  were,  2,720,000  tons.     In   i860 — while  yet 


INDEPENDENCE,  INTER-DEPENDENCE.        35 

the  war  which  "  gave  the  carrying  trade  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  to  the  greedy  British  "  was  but  a  threat — 
the  total  was  no  less  than  4,586,CK)0  tons.  Ten 
years  more  of  free  trade  made  it  5,617,000  tons. 
And  in  1878,  the  sum  was  a  magnificent  6,198,000. 

During  these  forty  years,  the  protecting  naviga- 
tion laws  of  the  United  States  fostered  her  foreign 
carrying  trade  into  the  grave  ;  while  her  unparalleled 
opportunity  for  coast-wise  efforts  brought  her  ton- 
nage laboriously  up  from  2,180,000  to  4,2 12,000  tons. 

Nor  have  the  working  people  of  England  been 
routed  out  of  the  mills  by  foreign  pauper  labor.  In 
cotton  manufacture,  the  number  of  hands  employed 
increased  from  330,924  in  1850,  to  479,519  in  1874. 

The  woolen  trade  for  the  same  period  nearly 
doubled  its  force.     So  also  the  flax  industry. 

Among  manufactures  of  more  recent  growth, 
jute  reported  5,967  operatives  in  1861,  and  37,920 
in  1874.  And  the  tale  might  be  continued  indefin- 
itely. 

If  the  industrial  troubles  of  Great  Britain  were 
as  severe  as  they  are  commonly  portrayed,  nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  striking  results  would  ap- 
pear in  the  statistics  of  the  savings  banks,  the  char- 
ities and  the  police  courts.  Striking  results  do, 
indeed,  appear,  but  not  on  the  side  which  some 
would  expect.  Between  the  years  1871  and  1877, 
the  amounts  deposited  in  the  savings  banks  have 
increased  by  steady  additions,  from  ;^5 5,843,667  to 
;^72,979,443  ;  the  number  of  paupers  relieved  in 
England  and  Wales  has  steadily  decreased  from 
1,081,925  to  742,703  ;  the  convictions  for  criminal 


36  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

offences  in  the  United  Kingdom  have  declined  from 
16,387,  with  a  population  of  '^\\  millions  to  16,255, 
with  a  population  of  33  millions. 

The  sophism  as  to  national  independence  loses 
somewhat  of  its  cunning  in  the  light  of  facts  like 
these.  The  truth  is  coming  more  and  more  into 
the  light. 

Nation  must  lean  upon  nation.  The  dispensa- 
tions of  Providence  which  have  varied  the  growth 
of  every  clime,  and  the  staple  of  every  soil,  make  it 
as  much  the  duty  of  men  to  exclude  monopoly  from 
the  family  of  nations,  as  selfishness  from  the  family 
of  individuals.  They  make  patriotism  and  philan- 
thropy work  hand  and  hand,  and  peace  and  plenty 
to  kiss  each  other. 

The  doctrine  of  national  independence  by  virtue 
of  a  contravention  of  nature's  order  sounds  strangely 
enough  when  translated  into  plain  speech  : — "  You, 
who  are  fit  to  be  a  manufacturer  for  the  world,  must 
turn  plowman,  and  you,  plowman,  must  turn,  against 
your  will,  into  a  manufacturer.  Artisans  of  England, 
starve ! — that  the  rich  lands  may  be  worked  at  un- 
profitable outlay  and  the  barren  lands  yield  an  im- 
mediate  crop  to  their  insatiate  owner!  You,  agri- 
culturist in  America !— with  your  free  homestead,  and 
cheap  acres,  outvying  in  fatness  the  fabled  vales  of 
the  classics, — instead  of  supplying  the  English  artisan 
with  food,  must  turn  a  manufacturer  of  dear  fabrics, 
for  a  home  market  or  your  own  use  !  "  By  the  same 
logic,  dispense  with  the  sun  and  soil  of.  Florida,  and 
raise  oranges  in  New  Hampshire  ;  grow  lemons  in 
the  conservatories  of  Fifth  Avenue ;    plow  up  the 


INDEPENDENCE,  INTER-DEPENDENCE.         37 

granite  bed  about  Central  Park  and  sow  it  in  oats 
and  wheat ;  make  all  other  silly  arrangements  you 
will — until  experience  teaches  the  sublimity  of  such 
foolery,  and  until  your  patriotism  is  tried  in  the 
crucible  of  disaster. 

It  seems  useless  to  argue  such  points.  The  in- 
compatibility between  national  prosperity  and  nat- 
ional independence,  so-called,  is  manifest.  Even  if 
the  theory  seerns  true,  practice  will  not  conform 
to  it. 

What  was  the  result  of  the  exclusive  policy  in 
England  ?  How  did  it  affect  her  relations  with  the 
world  ?  Did  it  make  the  nation  more  independent  ? 
If  it  did,  it  was  in  this  wise  : — The  countries  under 
the  German  league  had  some  twenty  millions  en- 
gaged in  agriculture.  England,  before  the  repeal  of 
the  corn  laws,  had  about  thirty  thousand  owners  of 
the  soil.  It  was  for  these  thirty  thousand  that  she 
would  shut  out  the  millions  of  Germany,  and  the 
custom  that  these  millions  would  bring  to  her  man- 
ufacturers. 

This  was  independence  !  From  1832  to  1837,  the 
quantity  of  English  goods  exported  to  Germany 
actually  diminished  one-half. 

England  knows  better  now.  She  has  grown  rich 
by  making  hers  a  market  for  all  the  world. 

To  use  the  language  of  a  French  minister,  "To 
get  concessions  from  others,  we  ought  to  be  in  the 
condition  to  grant  them," — a  policy,  which  France, 
now,  with  a  prohibition  of  nearly  all  the  articles  of 
our  production,  might  well  heed.  Especially  should 
she  heed  it,  when  she  complains  that  our  silks  are 


/ 


38  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

taking  the  place  of  hers,  and  our  wines  sapping  the 
product  of  her  vineyards. 

To  be  in  a  reciprocal  condition  with  other  nations 
is  to  be  utterly  independent ;  for  independence  in 
economy  is  to  be  dependent  on  all,  thus  making  all 
dependent  on  us. 

But  what,  after  all,  is  this  independence  which 
we  are  told  is  so  precious  ?  Is  it  not  the  independ- 
ence of  poverty  ?  Consider  the  wealth  that  lies  in 
that  man's  hands  who  possesses  an  abounding  sur- 
plus of  the  products  o*f  the  soil,  and  is  left  unre- 
strained in  the  disposition  of  his  riches.  Comfort, 
refinement,  elevation — these  are  within  his  grasp. 

No  man  in  the  higher  walks  of  civilization  can  be 
satisfied  with  the  products  confined  within  his  patri- 
otic soil.  Is  he  an  elegant  man?  The  roses  of 
Cashmere  give  much  of  their  attar  for  his  boudoir. — 
Is  he  a  neat  man  ?  His  very  neckerchief  ties  him  to 
the  memory  of  Jacquard  and  his  loom.  By  the  thin 
film  of  the  cocoon,  he  is  bound  to  the  little  spinner 
who  builds  his  silken  sarcophagus  upon  the  mul- 
berries of  Italy. — Is  he  a  gay  man  ?  The  jewels  on  his 
breast  are  picked  up  afar  in  Golconda,  and  polished 
in  Amsterdam — Is  he  a  bon-vivant  ?  The  sherries  of 
Xerrez  are  fabricated  and  flavored  for  the  satisfaction 
of  his  palate. — Would  he  be  a  witty  man  ?  Does  he 
not  know  that  the  camel  passing  amid  the  ruins  of 
Baalbec  and  Palmyra,  or  the  donkey  trudging  through 
the  sands  of  the  desert,  are  bearing  the  fragrant  spice, 
to  stimulate  his  appetite  while  he  seasons  his  elo- 
quence ? — Is  he  a  fluent  man  ?  Let  him  lubricate 
\{\s>chordae  vocales  with  the  candied  fruits  and  "  dul- 


INDEPENDENCE,  INTER-DEPENDENCE.         39 

cet  syrups,  tinct  with  cinnamon  from  silken  Sarma- 
cand  or  cedared  Lebanon." — Is  he  a  smoking  man  ? 
Does  not  the  fragrant  weed  grow  in  Cuba  and 
Manilla,  for  his  special  delectation  ? — Is  he  a  family 
man  ?  Arabia,  Java,  and  Brazil  give  him  coffee ; 
China,  tea ;  and  Cuba,  sugar. — Is  he  a  gentleman? 
He  has  his  broadcloth  from  France  and  his  wife  her 
silk  and  satin  from  Lyons. — Is  he  a  working  man  ? 
Do  not  his  tools  come  from  the  inventive  and  me- 
chanical skill  of  all  lands,  and  his  shelter,  food  and 
clothing  out  of  the  liberty  of  land  and  trade  ? — Is 
he  a  Christian  man  ?  Does  he  not  know  that  but  for 
these  interchanges, — our  cheap  coal,  steam  and  ships, 
— the  missionary  would  be  limited  to  one  language 
and  one  country,  and  the  gospel  never  have  had  a 
chance  to  fill  the  earth  with  its  glory  ? 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES   OF  THE   CORN   LAWS. 

The  Corn  Laws  keep  all  the  air  hot :  fostered  by  their  fever  warmth, 
much  that  is  evil  ...  is  rapidly  coming  to  life  among  us. 

Thomas  Carlyle. 

Impoverishment  of  the  wage  class — Increase  of  pauperism 
AND  CRIME — Physical  deterioration — Corruption  of  pub- 
Lie  morals — Disintegration  of  the  state. 

rriHE  corn  law  policy  doubtless  bore  with  the 
J-  heaviest  weight  upon  the  English  laborer.  It 
detracted  from  his  adequate  reward  ;  it  took  away 
his  greatest  stimulus  to  work  ;  it  restricted  supply, 
and  lessened  abundance.  It  was  as  indefensible  in 
principle,  as  it  was  injurious  in  operation. 

Protection  and  Want. 

That  labor  was  not  adequately  rewarded  will  ap- 
pear, when  we  consider  the  immense  resources  of 
England  ;  her  civil  institutions,  her  knowledge,  her 
inventive  genius,  her  morality  and  religion.  Such 
a  country  ought  to  be  happy.  But  was  she  happy? 
Why  did  the  prayer  of  millions  go  up  to  Heaven,  in 
vain,  for  so  many  long  years,  for  daily  bread  ?  Why 
did  four  millions  live  on  oat  meal,  and  six  millions 
on  potatoes ;  and  thus  ten  millions  lose  the  luxury 
of  wheaten  flour,  while  a  virgin  continent  like  our 
own     was    ready    to     supply    them,    under   mutual 


SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS.      41 

offices  ?  Why  were  the  poor  houses  crowded  ? 
Why  in  the  name  of  that  God,  whose  providence 
was  counteracted  so  long,  should  England  be  starved, 
or  even  poor?  The  poor  rates  in  the  city  of  Lon- 
don in  1842,  amounted  to  nearly  ;^30,ooo,ooo  ster- 
ling. How  often,  in  those  days  of  sadness,  the 
torch  of  the  mob  lit  up  the  lurid  sky  ?  Why  did 
Chartism  arise,  in  its  rude  strength  ?  Why  did  all 
the  complicated  ills  which  attend  famine,  fall  upon 
England  ?  Why  was  she,  at  every  change  in  the 
heavens  which  menaced  her  crops,  threatened  with 
misery  and  woe  ?  Was  it  because  English  indus- 
try was  unproductive,  that  it  received  so  little?  Was 
not  her  industry  and  skill  developed?  Did  not  the 
gigantic  forces  of  steam,  modified  and  harnessed 
in  a  thousand  ways,  nerve  and  assist  the  arm  of 
labor?  Did  not  the  contrivances  of  her  genius 
quadruple  the  facilities  of  transportation,  and  render 
the  supply  of  human  want  easy  and  cheap  ?  Yet  it 
was  that  England  that  suffered.  Let  us  keep  in 
mind  the  parallelism  of  our  own  country,  especially 
during  the  riots  of  1877,  and  answer  these  singular 
questions  with  thoughtful  consideration. 

The  wages  of  the  laborer  are  not  raised  with 
the  price  of  food.  His  real  wages  are  rather  lowered  : 
they  lose  in  purchasing  power.  They  tend  to  de- 
cline in  nominal  amount  also;  for  the  workman  is 
in  a  poor  condition  to  bargain  with  his  master  for 
wages  when  food  is  dear  and  work  scarce.  Of 
course  there  were  other  causes  than  restriction  on 
foreign  grain,  to  withdraw  the  rewards  from  labor ; 
but  the  great  cause,  without  which  all  other  causes 


V 


42  FA-EE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

were  of  little  moment,  has  been   proved  by  time  to 
have  been  the  lack  of  freedom  in  land  and  trade. 

Free   Trade  and  Plenty. 

By  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  England  enlarged 
the  area  of  her  agricultural  resources.  Free  inter- 
change annexed  the  food-growing  acres  of  other 
nations.  It  was  just  as  if  so  much  fruitful  land  had 
risen  from  the  sea.  The  United  States  became  prac- 
tically a  part  of  England  ;  as,  by  the  Walker  tariff 
of  '46,  England  was  made  a  part  of  the  United 
States.  The  reward  withheld  from  the  laborer  by 
the  protective  system  at  once  began  to  be  given  to 
him  in  fuller  measure. 

It  seems  as  if  Providence  designed  that  new  and 
sparsely  cultivated  countries,  like  our  own,  should 
be  made  valuable  for  the  support  of  old  and  densely 
populated  countries,  like  England.  Those  who  un- 
dertake to  contravene  this  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence incur  the  Scriptural  malediction  upon  those 
who  withhold  from  the  laborer  his  hire. 

Men  follow  instinctively  the  true  law  when  they 
pray  for  rich  harvests.  Presidents  and  governors  of 
states  recognize  it  when,  in  their  messages,  they 
thank  God  for  abundant  crops.  What  mockery 
it  is  to  pray  for  abundance,  and  then  construct  arti- 
ficial restrictions  against  using  it !  Is  there  any  dif- 
ference between  having  food  scarce  by  a  bad  harvest, 
and  making  it  scarce  by  legal  means  ? 

If  any  one  would  know  the  effect  of  restriction, 
as  seen  in  the  withdrawal  of  stimulating  rewards  to 
industry,  let  him  look  at  the  effect  of  a  bad  harvest. 


SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  CORN  LA  WS.     43 

If  any  one  would  know  the  result  of  free  trade,  let 
him  regard  the  consequences  of  an  abundant  har- 
vest. Do  wages  fall?  Is  the  home  market  bad? 
Do  other  branches  of  industry  droop  ?  Is  labor  dis- 
placed ?  We  know  it  is  not  so.  Abundance  is  a 
blessing.  The  rich  blood  from  the  fruitful  land 
runs  through  every  vein  and  artery  of  the  industrial 
body,  infusing  life  and  power. 

The  Tariff  Curse. 

The  corn  laws  caused  destitution  and  scarcity. 
These  were  the  forerunners  of  fever  and  revolution. 
All  forms  of  disease  sink  into  insignificance,  when 
compared  to  these  great  predisposing  agencies.  It 
may  be  said,  if  other  causes  have  slain  their  thou- 
sands, these  have  slain  their  tens  of  thousands.  We 
talk  to-day,  much  as  they  talked  in  England  in  1846, 
of  the  hours  of  labor.  There  doubtless  should  be 
a  modification  of  the  hours  and  hardships  of  labor ; 
but  all  legislation  about  them  is  useless  when  such 
tariffs  exists  as  those  before  1846,  The  building 
of  poor-houses  is  a  mockery ;  the  talk  about  hu- 
manity, so  glib  upon  the  lips  of  some,  is  maudlin, 
and  worse  than  mockery,  while  such  laws  as  corn 
laws  are  in  operation.  Think  of  the  reckless  and 
criminal  indulgence  in  cheap  years,  to  balance  the 
distress  and  scanty  food  of  the  dear  years,  and  con- 
sider what  inclination  for  craft  and  economy  there  is 
in  such  an  arrangement  of  labor.  The  eight  or  ten 
hour  rule,  under  such  a  system,  would  only  give  the 
operative  more  time  to  measure  his  despair.  Poor 
laws  may  preserve  him  from  starvation,  but  not  from 


44  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

the  gnawing  anxiety  and  distraction  of  the  soul, 
from  suffering  cold,  from  insufficient  clothes,  from 
crowded  tenement  houses.  What  is  milk  to  the 
child  whose  mother  is  harrassed  by  care,  or  stinted 
of  wholesome  food?  Without  such  aliment,  there 
is  disease  and  premature  death.  Garbage  cannot 
stay  the  grievance  of  hunger,  nor  the  excitement  of 
despair  give  respite  from  anxiety. 

Under  such  conditions,  affecting  our  kind  in 
England,  were  the  corn  laws  killed.  These  laws 
touched  all  the  social  organisms  ;  the  number  and 
nature  of  diseases  and  crimes  depended  on  them  ; 
they  made  increase  of  population  a  curse  instead  of 
a  blessing  ;  they  palsied  every  energy ;  they  par- 
alyzed every  nerve.  Not  the  eloquence  of  Bright 
nor  the  statistics  of  Cobden,  nor  the  hymns  and 
rhymes  of  Elliott,  could  tell  half  the  miseries  which 
the  poor  of  England  suffered  for  the  ten  years  pre- 
ceding the  repeal.  Was  there  not  some  wilful  and 
dangerous  obstinacy  in  the  English  legislation  ? 
Has  it  been  transmitted  to  their  children  in  the 
New  World  ?  How  many  years  did  they  listen  to 
the  cry  of  famished  millions  before  they  yielded 
relief?  How  often  did  they  recall  the  statistics  of 
starvation,  crime  and  consumption,  before  they 
slaughtered  the  infamous  statute?  "How  long,  oh 
Lord,  how  long,"  were  heard  the  piercing  cries  of 
the  famished,  and  the  hungry  roar  of  the  mob ; 
heard  even  across  the  Atlantic,  and  heard  in  vain, 
until  Sir  Robert  Peel  raised  his  voice  and  demanded 
that  justice  be  done! 

Not  only  was  the  physical  condition  of  the  peo- 


SOCIAL  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS.      41; 

pie  of  England  rendered  miserable  by  this  unnatural 
legislation.  Minds  and  morals  suffered  as  well.  It 
is  an  old  argument,  all  too  familiar,  that  destitution 
leads  to  crime.  The  statistics  of  crime  in  England 
before  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws  illustrate  how 
weak  were  codes,  and  how  little  reverence  for  mag- 
istrates, or  care  for  personal  safety,  remained,  when 
despair  swayed  the  multitude.  The  first  change  in 
the  corn  laws  was  made  in  1842.  From  that  date 
the  statistics  show  a  decrease  of  the  number  of  com- 
mitments :  in  1843,  5i  P^**  cent;  in  1844,  lof  per 
cent;  in  1845,  51"  P^r  cent,  on  the  preceding  year. 
All  this  time  the  population  was  growing.  In 
1840-41-42,  there  were  1257  persons  arrested  on 
charges  of  sedition  and  riotous  offences.  In  1843- 
44-45,  when  some  amelioration  took  place  in  the 
law,  only  124  persons  were  committed  on  similar 
charges.  Transportation  of  criminals  grew  less  and 
less.  "  These  social  advantages,"  said  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  "  are  concurrent  with  the  relations  of  our  pro- 
tection to  domestic  industry."  It  was  upon  such 
facts  as  these  that  he  had  the  courage  to  act.  The 
operative  who  was  always  starved  for  bread,  bread, 
bread,  could  not  find  time  to  devote  to  the  improve- 
ment of  his  intellect.  His  body  and  soul  were  bur- 
dened by  continual  drudgery  ;  all  that  was  divine 
was  smothered,  all  that  was  wolfish  leaped  into  hot 
and  eager  life  in  the  miserable  struggle  for  existence. 
But  not  alone  was  the  working  man  degraded. 
True,  the  corn  laws  struck  directly  at  the  daily  toil- 
ers for  daily  bread  ;  the  poor  and  the  humble  were 
their  most  conspicuous  victims.     But  are  not  the 


46 


FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


V 


toiling  masses  the  foundation  of  the  State  ?  If  the 
foundation  be  insecure,  is  not  the  building  itself  in 
peril?  Was  ever  oppression  permitted  that  the  op- 
pressor did  not  suffer  demoralization  as  well  as  him 
whose  shoulders  were  bruised  ?  The  moral  sense 
of  the  whole  body  of  the  people  becomes  diseased 
at  last  ;  civil  order  is  neglected  ;  the  very  fabric  of 
society  is  threatened  with  destruction. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

PLEAS  FOR  THE   DEFENSE. 

"  There  are  who  lord  it  o'er  their  fellow-men 
With  most  prevailing  tinsel." 

Protection  due  to  particular  classks — Plundering  custo- 
mers TO  STIMULATE  TRADE — ThE  RKVENUE  PRETEXT — HUN- 
dreds to  the  government,  millions  to  the  monopolists 
—Application    to   united    states — ^Vested    rights   and 

VESTED   wrongs. 

IT  is  much  easier  to  overthrow  the  protective  ar- 
gument, in  a  contest  of  pure  logic,  than  it  is  to 
dispel  from  men's  minds  the  vague  cloud  of  half 
ideas  which  arise  from  traditional  assertion  or  un- 
reasoning prejudice.  The  Corn  Law  agitation  is 
replete  with  examples,  and  a  study  of  one  or  two  of 
them  may  be  useful. 

Protection  Due  to  Agriculture. 

The  corn  laws,  it  was  said,  fostered  agriculture ; 
and  to  agriculture  such  care  and  consideration  was 
due.  The  reasoning  is  on  a  par  with  that  which 
sustains  our  protective  system.  To  manufacturers 
is  due  a  meed  of  protection  greater  than  that  which 
other  classes  of  labor  can  claim. 

Without  arguing  whether  protection  does  protect, 
why  is  it  due  to  agriculture,  any  more  than  to  any 


4.8  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

other  department  of  industry?  What  is  protection? 
Explained  by  its  advocates,  it  is  that  poHcy,  which, 
by  increasing  the  price  of  any  commodity,  gives  such 
a  stimulus  to  its  production  that  it  will  be  created 
where  it  otherwise  could  not  be.  But  was  it  for  the 
benefit  of  the  agriculturists  of  England  that  their 
food  should  be  high?  If  not,  protection  did  not 
benefit  in  this  respect. 

Is  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  agriculturist  that  the 
consumers  shall  be  compelled  to  purchase  from  him? 
The  notion  is  plausible.  But  the  facts  declare  the 
fallacy.  Confine  the  consumer  to  the  home  market, 
and  you  practically  confine  the  producer  to  it  also. 
Instability  is  the  direct  result,  and  the  losses  by 
fluctuations  more  than  destroy  the  extorted  profits 
of  monopoly. 

Furthermore,  one  class  cannot  prey  upon  another 
without  working  out  a  retribution  for  itself.  If  the 
corn-growers  plunder  the  manufacturers,  they  are 
but  impoverishing  their  own  customers.  It  has  been 
reduced  to  a  maxim,  that  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity, in  all  its  different  parts,  are  not  antagonistic. 
Manufacturers  are  necessary  for  the  existence  of 
millions,  and  there  are  millions  engaged  in  carrying 
them  on ;  they  are  necessary  for  the  support  of  the 
agriculturist.  Whatever  affects  the  one  will  affect 
the  other.  There  is  no  real  competition  between 
them.  To  borrow  the  oft-quoted,  but  forcible  lan- 
guage of  Sir  Josiah  Child  : — "  Land  and  trade  are 
twins,  and  always  and  ever  will  remain,  and  wax 
together; — you  cannot  shackle  land  but  trade  will 
feel  it,  nor  trade,  but  land  will  fall." 


PLEAS  FOR  THE  DEFENSE. 


49 


Free  land  and  free  trade  were  "  twinned  and  have 
no  individual  being." 

As  to  the  point  of  enlarged  production  : — Corn 
laws  may  indeed  lead  to  the  cultivation  of  more 
land  ;  but  is  the  land  worth  the  application  of  labor 
and  capital  ?  Are  the  interests  of  the  country  to 
be  sacrificed  because  certain  land  will  not  admit  of  a 
practical  cultivation  ?  The  land  owners  of  England, 
previous  to  1846,  forbade  the  community  its  freedom 
— not  alone  by  tenure  but  by  bread  tax  as  well.  They 
did  what  improvident  men  have  often  done  when 
cheaper  production  was  offered.  They  flung  away 
the  instrument  of  frugality  and  abundance.  How 
much  better  or  wiser  were  they  than  the  mobs  that 
have  destroyed  labor-saving  machines?  They  would 
not  suffer  the  cheap  bread-making  machines  of  their 
foreign  rivals  to  be  used.  The  cost  of  all  production 
was  increased  in  consequence.  In  every  department 
of  industry  the  fruits  of  labor  were  reduced.  The 
mass  suffered  for  the  benefit  of  the  few,  and  even  the 
protected  interest  itself  was  ultimately  crippled  and 
impoverished,  and  those  depending  on  it  brought  to 
distress. 

A  Revenue  is  Needed. 

Again  it  was  said,  this  protection  is  necessary  to 
supply  a  revenue  to  the  Government. 

The  answer  to  this  plea  is,  that  the  revenue  of  the 
Government  must  be  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the 
people.  It  should  be  drawn,  therefore,  by  an  equita- 
ble system  of  taxation.  The  protective  plan  pro- 
vides a  small  measure  of  public  revenue  and  a  large 
measure  of  private  plunder. 


50  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

Customs  duties  are  not  the  only  means  of  revenue 
open  to  a  Government.  Especially  is  it  true  that  a 
tariff  such  as  ours  is  not  the  only  means  possible. 
The  freer  the  trade  the  greater  will  be  the  tax  in- 
come levied  from  it ;  the  less  the  number  of  objects 
taxed  by  the  customs  duty,  the  more  certain  and 
stable  will  be  the  return.     England  attests  this. 

In  this  country,  the  protectionist  device  is  to 
hide  under  indirection  the  burdens  of  the  tariff. 
Now  the  standard  of  taxation  is  not  the  amount 
which  is  collected  by  the  custom  house.  It  is  the 
amount  which  the  consumer  pays  by  reason  of  the 
enhanced  cost  of  the  "  protected  "  article.  For  a 
striking  illustration,  take  the  period  of  our  war, 
when  the  customs  were  paid  in  gold,  and  when  gold 
was  inordinately  high.  Add  to  the  nominal  customs 
tax,  the  difference  between  paper  and  gold,  the  cost 
of  exchange,  the  importers  profit,  the  wholesalers 
percentage,  and  the  retailers  ten  per  cent,  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  our  tariffs,  which  have  furnished  hun- 
dreds of  millions  to  the  treasury,  have  levied  thou- 
sands of  millions  on  the  consumer. 

Vested  Interests. 

Once  more,  it  was  said  that  agriculture  must  be 
protected  because  of  the  "  vested  interests  "  grown 
up  about  the  custom. 

This  reasoning  would  have  more  influence  in  an 
old  country  like  England,  more  loath  to  change  her 
laws  and  institutions  of  government,  than  our  own. 
But,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  England  has  adopted  a 
new  order  of  economy  with  more  promptness,  and 


PLEAS  FOR  THE  DEFENSE. 


51 


held  on  to  it  with  more  tenacity  than  these  new 
United  States. 

But  there  never  was  a  wrong  or  grievance  in  a 
political  organization  for  which  this  plea  of  vested 
right  has  not  been  made.  It  is  not  good  as  a  gen- 
eral plea  on  the  common  grounds,  much  less  as  a 
special  plea,  when  urged  in  defence  of  protection. 
It  was  contended  with  earnestness,  by  those  who  up- 
held the  restrictive  system,  that  agriculture  was  the 
primitive  employment  of  man.  Was  it  not  Adam 
who  delved  when  Eve  span  ?  Should  not  this  primi- 
tive occupation  be  the  source  of  National  wealth  ? 
Why  not,  therefore,  give  it  every  paternal  care  and 
politic  encouragement  ?  For  how  many  years  did 
St.  Stephens  ring  with  the  couplet  about — 

"That  bold  peasantry,  their  country's  pride  ; 
Which  once  destroyed,  can  never  be  supplied." 

— while  at  the  same  time,  the  martyred  Saint  Ste- 
phen gave  its  legislation  for  the  destruction  of  this 
very  class. 

All  this  eloquence  and  poetry  about  this  bold  peas- 
antry is  idle.  In  America,  or  in  Russia,  there  might 
be  some  show  of  reason  for  it ;  since  the  agriculturists 
are  the  most  numerous  and  the  dominating  order  ; 
but  in  England,  so  peculiarly  fitted  by  nature  for 
other  purposes  than  agriculture,  there  is  no  reason 
for  such  ebullition  of  patriotism.  This  motive  for 
maintaining  the  agriculturists,  as  a  class,  is  a  phan- 
tom as  wild  as  that  which  would  protect  our  manu- 
facturers as  a  class  in  America.  As  well  maintain 
that  the  clumsy  wooden  plow,  of  the  time  of  Abra- 


v 


52  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

ham,  and  now  used  by  the  Kabyles  in  Algeria,  or 
the  Poeans  of  Mexico,  should  still  be  used  in  place 
of  our  labor,  time,  and  skill-saving  agricultural  im- 
plements. Any  department  of  industry  which  is 
the  most  profitable  will  crowd  out  the  old  and  un- 
profitable. There  should  be  no  legislative  hindrance 
to  this  displacement. 

But  the  plea  is  shaped  yet  more  definitely.  It 
is  contended  that  as  restrictions  have  been  continued 
for  a  long  period,  as  much  capital  has  been  expended 
under  the  security  they  have  afforded,  and  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  important  interests, — that  therefore 
such  restrictions  should  still  be  maintained. 

The  fallacy  is  the  ignoring  of  other  "  vested  in- 
terests." The  protected  class  have  no  more  right  to 
consideration  than  have  the  classes  which  are  asked 
to  pay  tribute  to  them.  For  example,  a  parliament 
of  land  owners  passed  the  law  of  1815.  It  wanted 
to  keep  up  war  prices.  Its  members  did  it  under 
the  cover  of  the  bayonet.  They  were  told  when 
they  did  it,  and  they  were  told  subsequently,  in  1846, 
that  these  laws  would  be  repealed  when  other  in- 
terests and  equities  obtained  predominance.  If  land 
holders  had  vested  interests  in  18 15,  had  not  the 
manufacturers  and  merchants  also  ?  This  is  a  ques- 
tion of  morals.  If  it  was  wrong  to  grant  protection 
to  one  class  at  first,  admitting  that  it  was  not  eco- 
nomical, was  it  right  to  continue  that  wrong,  when 
on  every  succeeding  moment  the  wrong  continued 
the  aggravation?  Can  time  sanctify  injustice? 
Does  sufferance  make  a  grievance  just?  All  things 
sinister  and  sinful,  from  the  creeping  of  the  serpent 


PLEAS  FOR  THE  DEFENSE.  53 

into  Eden,  to  the  last  jugglery  with  a  railroad  in 
America,  are  in  a  similar  case.  They  are  not  to  be 
tolerated  because  long  practiced.  When  is  it  best  to 
remove  a  wrong,  that  is  a  grievance,  if  not  immediate- 
ly on  its  ascertainment  ?  There  is  the  more  reason 
for  its  removal,  if  it  has  centuries  of  its  continuance 
behind.  Must  you  wait,  until  starvation  and  revolu- 
tion demand  relief?  That  is  a  dangerous  peril  for 
society  to  approach.  Relief,  and  bloodless  relief  is 
duty.  Why  not  repeal  immediately  that  which  was 
immediately  adopted? 

Let  us  remember  the  words  of  Lord  Bacon,  so 
often  illustrated  since  that  illustrious  man's  time: 
"  The  froward  retention  of  custom  is  as  turbulent  a 
thing  as  innovation." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

England's  present  land  troubles. 

"  The  heir  at  law  must  be  abandoned  to  the  society  of  antiquar- 
ians." Jeremy  Bentham. 

Rise  of  new  conditions  since  the  repeal — Enslavement  of 

THE  LAND — ReLICS  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SYSTEM — ThE  CULTI- 
VATOR BARRED  FROM  OWNERSHIP  IN  THE  SOIL — AMERICAN 
COMPETITION — An    UNCERTAIN    FUTURE. 

IT  is  impossible  to  study  the  history  of  England's 
industry  and  commerce,  in  connection  with  the 
corn  laws,  without  perceiving  what  a  bar  those  laws 
were  to  her  progress,  and  what  a  blessing  was  their 
expunging  to  every  class  of  her  people.  And  yet  to- 
day there  are  many,  both  in  England  and  in  the 
United  States,  who  point  to  the  fact  of  the  prevail- 
ing industrial  distress  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and 
ask  with  gloomy  exultation  :  "  What  does  your  free 
trade  theory  amount  to,  after  all  ?" 

What  Free  Trade  Has  Done. 

The  question  might  be  answered  in  several  ways. 
The  free  trade  theory  when  practically  questioned, — 
by  results, — amounts  at  least  to  this :  that  under  its 
influence  the  exports  of  British  products  advanced 
by  rapid  strides  from  ;^63, 596,000  in  1849,  t^°  years 
after  the  corn  laws  fell  to  ;^256,257,ooo  in  1872.  It 
amounts  to  this  :  that  the  value  of  these  exports /^r 


ENGLAND'S  PRESENT  LAND  TROUBLES. 


55 


capita  of  British  population  was  £2  ^s  lid,  in  1849, 
and  £6  2s  yd,  in  1869.  It  amounts  to  this:  that  in 
1840,  the  British  merchant  navy  covered  3,311,000 
tons,  and  in  1879,  it  reached  8,266,000  tons. 

Taking  the  importation  of  those  articles  which 
peculiarly  indicate  the  comfort  of  the  masses,  we 
find  these  comparisons,  on  a  per  capita  basis  : — 
sugar,  imported  in  1852,28.15  lbs;  in  1877,  54.06 
lbs.  Tea,  imported  in  1852,  2.00  lbs;  in  1877,  4.52 
lbs.  Tobacco,  imported  in  1852,  1.04  lbs;  in  1877, 
1.49  lbs.  Spirits,  imported  in  1852,  i.io  gals;  in 
1877,  1.23  gals. 

The  free  trade  theory  amounts  to  this  :  that 
thirty  years  ago  not  over  a  third  of  the  English  peo- 
ple had  meat  to  their  potatoes  more  than  once  a 
week,  while  now,  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  home 
crops,  nearly  all  have  animal  food  of  some  kind  every 
day. 

In  a  word,  the  theory  of  unrestricted  commercial 
intercourse  has  amounted  to  a  thirty  year's  rain  of 
good  things,  whose  virtue  has  gone  to  the  roots  and 
into  the  sap  of  the  national  tree  ;  whose  vital  power 
has  thrown  out  the  branches  and  blossoms  of 
British  empire  into  every  clime  ;  whose  fruit  has 
made  glad  a  generation  of  Britons,  putting  rich  blood 
into  their  veins  and  manly  pith  into  their  limbs. 
This  much  cannot  be  denied.  There  are  the  facts. 
They  confirm  theory. 

If  there  be  distress  in  England  to-day,  it  is  dis- 
tress in  comparison  with  a  scale  of  well-being  vastly 
higher  than  that  of  the  old  protective  era.  "  Dis- 
tress "  under  the  corn  laws  meant  cold  and  hunger ; 


56  FREE  TRADE  AND  FREE  LAND. 

it  meant  nakedness  and  starvation,  it  meant  riot  and 
arson,  robbery  and  murder ;  it  meant  the  thrusting 
out  of  workmen  from  the  workshop  to  learn  how  to 
maintain  existence  as  beasts  of  prey — inventing  new 
crimes,  discovering  fresh  iniquities,  perishing  misera- 
bly and  with  imprecations  against  mankind  and 
heaven.  "  Distress"  to-day  in  England  has  no  such 
signification.  Its  limit  is  the  abandonment  of  home, 
emigration,  and  the  beginning  of  life  anew  in  a  new 
world.  This  is  hardship  enough.  Far  be  it  from 
me  to  make  light  of  it.  But  compared  with  the 
utter  ruin  which  involved  the  toilers  in  industrial 
stoppages  under  the  reign  of  the  corn  laws ,  the 
troubles  of  the  present  time  seem  small  indeed.    " 

Free  Land  the  Need. 

But  the  case  need  not  be  rested  here.  The  "  Free 
Trade  "  doctrine  has  a  wider  sweep  than  most  peo- 
ple perceive.  "  For  all  her  free  trade,"  says  the 
critic,  "  England's  agriculture  is  to-day  in  a  sorry 
state.  The  corn  laws  were  abolished  in  1846,  and 
now,  a  generation  after,  we  find  her  farmers  forsaking 
the  soil." 

England  has  free  trade — in  a  measure.  But  has 
she  free  land  ?  Trade  is  not  really  free  while  the 
land  is  enslaved,  and  England's  land  is  enslaved  in- 
deed. The  soil  is  not  owned  by  those  who  cultivate 
it.  The  farmer  can  get  but  an  insecure  lease  at  a 
rent  rate  ever  more  oppressive ;  he  is  hedged  about 
by  all  sorts  of  conditions  as  to  management — condi- 
tions prescribed,  often,  by  dictators  dead  for  a  cen- 
tury.   Real  owners — there  are  no  real  owners !    The 


ENGLAND'S  PRESENT  LAND  TROUBLS.  57 

nominal  owner  has  but  a  life  estate,  and  commonly 
is  so  burdened  besides,  that  if  he  had  the  inclination, 
he  has  not  the  power,  to  do  for  the  land  that  which 
its  development  requires. 

England's  greatest  need  to-day  is  free  land.  The 
clamor  is  rising  for  the  breaking  of  the  shackles  of 
feudalism,  as  it  rose  for  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws. 
And  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  English  gov- 
ernment is  not  awake  to  the  necessity  of  considering 
the  questions  which  the  new  conditions  are  forcing 
into  prominence  ?  The  committees  recently  named 
by  the  Commons  have  made  reports  connected  with 
the  laws  of  primo-geniture,  succession,  titles  and 
transfers  of  real  estate.  Whatever  may  be  the  old 
reluctance,  formulated  in  Latinity,  as  to  changing  the 
English  law,  and  however  ancient  may  be  the  learn- 
ing connected  with  English  feudality,  the  Middle 
Ages  are  going  out  of  English  jurisprudence.  Pressure 
comes  out  of  the  very  necessities  of  English  and  Irish 
life.  The  old  phrases  which  Blackstone  has  made 
familiar,  will  soon  become  as  dead  as  the  black  let- 
ter of  the  early  English  eras. 

Yet  most  of  the  propositions  made  for  reform  are 
but  scratches  upon  the  surface,  and  do  not  relieve 
the  organic  trouble.  Simplify  as  English  statesmen 
may  the  modes  of  transfer  and  registry  of  land, — 
copy  as  they  may  our  American  law  of  record,  so  as 
to  make  transfers  public ;  still  the  disease  remains, 
so  long  as  the  law  of  inheritance  remains.  "  Heredit- 
aments" is  a  word  which  English  philology  must 
obliterate  from  its  most  recondite  glossary.  It  has 
worked  incalculable  injustice  to  women  as  well  as 


58  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

men  ;  to  elder  brothers  even,  as  well  as  other  broth- 
ers and  sisters.  Why  should  an  estate  tail  be  created 
for  one  sex  and  not  another?  Where  is  the  limit  to 
a  leasehold  ?  Why  should  one  kind  of  property  have 
certain  conditions,  and  not  another? 

Until  all  these  anomalies  of  the  English  law  are 
m.ade  straight  and  equitable,  Revolution  is  still  pos- 
sible for  the  reformation  of  great  evils  connected 
with  the  English  land  system.  The  great  reformer 
of  the  future  is  that  man  who  will  bestow  upon  the 
men  who  work  the  land  the  absolute  estate.  Prop- 
erty ought  to  be  fixed  in  him  who  is  most  concerned 
in  its  use.  When  land  is  truly  free,  it  is  subject  to  no 
conditions,  no  exactions,  except  those  which  a  frugal 
government  may  make  by  honest  taxation  for  its 
support.  Not  until  then,  will  the  terrors  and  trials 
incident  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  property  and 
wealth  cease.  Not  until  then,  will  agitation  for  a 
better  division  of  land  and  its  product  cease. 

Mr.  Holyoke,  the  English  cooperatist  reformer, 
has  said  that  in  the  richest  and  thriftiest  part  of  Eng- 
land, as  in  Norfolk,  farms  are  abandoned  altogether: 
while  throughout  that  county  wheat  is  given  up,  and 
grazing  is  taking  its  place.  He  estimates  that  there 
is  a  decrease  in  the  cultivation  of  wheat  the  past 
year  of  328,000  acres !  He  exclaims  that  there  has 
not  been  such  a  state  of  things  in  England  since  the 
Norman  Conquest.  He  asks  :  Can  it  be  that  England 
is  worse  off  than  Ireland  ?  Has  not  Ireland  a  free 
church  and  some  compensation  to  tenants?  Is  the 
remedy  to  be  found  in  the  protective  system,  by  the 
revival  of  the  corn  laws?  This  he  thinks  to  be  impos- 


ENGLAND'S  PRESENT  LABOR  TROUBLES.       59 

sible,  as  it  would  only  double  the  price  of  bread  to  the 
poor.     Cooperation  and  colonization  are  his  remedy. 

The  Royal  Commission  is  at  work  to  develop 
the  causes  and  the  means  of  relief;  but  if  they  fail 
to  remove  entail  and  primogeniture,  where  is  the 
remedy  that  will  last?  The  best  minds  in  England 
are  keenly  awake  to  the  real  issue.  What  could  be 
stronger  or  clearer  than  the  bold  and  honest  words  of 
John  Bright,  uttered  recently  at  Birmingham  ? — 

"  I  would  say  that  whenever  a  man  owning  land 
died  without  a  will,  his  land  should  be  subject  to 
exactly  the  same  rule  of  division  as  that  now  applied 
to  personal  property.  I  would  put  an  end  to  the 
system  of  entail.  I  would  so  legislate  that  the 
present  generation  should  be  the  absolute  owners 
of  the  land,  and  the  next  generation  should  be  the 
absolute  owners ;  but  neither  this  nor  the  next 
generation  should  be  able  to  dictate  to  future  gen- 
erations who  should  own  it." 

This  goes  to  the  root — and  it  may  be  that  we  in 
America  have  something  to  learn  from  the  admoni- 
tion. 

England's  Agricultural  Misfortunes. 
But  there  are  other  reasons — reasons  having  no 
connection  with  laws  or  the  repeal  of  laws — for  the 
prevailing  distress  among  the  agriculturists  of  Eng- 
land. The  past  four  seasons  have  been  full  of  disas- 
ters which  the  skies  have  sent.  The  quantity  of  rain 
has  been  unexampled.  The  average  yield  has  been 
very  small.  Even  after  the  grain  was  in  the  stack, 
the  chances  for  fine  weather  vanished.    The  deficiency 


6o  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

has  been  estimated  at  one  hundred  million  bushels 
of  wheat.  An  unexampled  agricultural  distress  in 
the  three  kingdoms  is  the  result.  No  generosity  on 
the  part  of  the  landlords ;  no  commissions  on  the 
part  of  Parliament ;  and  no  law  framed  in  the  interest 
of  tenant  proprietorship  can  do  away  with  the  pres- 
sure which  new  conditions  have  brought. 

The  only  point  to  which  protectionist  objections 
can  be  attached  is  that  of  the  competition,  under 
free  trade,  of  the  Western  fields  of  the  United  States 
with  the  farms  of  England.  The  advocates  of  re- 
striction, scarcity  and  starvation  are  welcome  to 
what  they  can  find  here. 

Before  the  days  of  American  rivalry,  there  was  a 
fair  percentage  made  by  the  frugal  English  farmer. 
Now  he  cannot  grow  wheat  with  any  profit ;  or  at 
least  the  profit  is  very  limited.  The  annual  rent  paid 
by  the  English  farmer  would  purchase  outright  good 
grain  soil  in  the  west  of  America,  as  much  as  he 
could  comfortably  cultivate.  Owing  to  the  improv- 
ment  of  agricultural  implements,  greater  facility  in 
handling  the  crops,  less  necessity  for  manure,  and  a 
different  mode  of  cultivation,  the  American  pro- 
ducer can  land  wheat  at  Liverpool  at  $1.12  a  bushel, 
with  a  good  return  to  both  farmer  and  merchant. 
He  can  land  beef,  raised  upon  his  ranches  in  the  west 
and  southwest,  for  ten  and  twelve  cents  a  pound,  at 
a  fair  profit.  The  cost  to  the  English  farmer  on  the 
other  hand  is  not  less  than  $1.50  a  bushel  for  wheat, 
and  at  least  sixteen  cents  a  pound  for  beef.  Cheese 
and  other  articles  are  to  be  reckoned  in  the  same 
proportion. 


ENGLAND'S  PRESENT  LAND   TROUBLES.        6 1 

The  English  land  system  is  responsible  for  much 
of  this.  But  English  obstinacy  must  bear  its  share 
of  blame  also. 

The  English  seem  to  have  neither  the  skill  nor 
the  will  to  get  out  of  their  old  ruts.  The  same  old 
crops  are  raised  in  the  same  old  way.  They  have 
expected  to  get  the  same  old  prices  with  the  same 
old  profits.  They  can  hardly  realize  that  for  the  past 
five  years,  owing  to  our  American  competition  and 
their  disastrous  weather,  they  have  been  failing  both 
in  their  yield  and  their  gains.  Observers  have  re- 
marked, and  with  truth,  that  the  American  farmer 
can  raise  his  produce  from  the  soil  at  one-third  less 
expense  than  the  English  farmer. 

But  let  not  the  American  farmer  settle  himself 
too  confidently  at  ease.  Whether  this  condition  of 
affairs  will  continue,  depends  somewhat  on  the 
whimsical  nature  of  wind  and  cloud,  and  perhaps  not 
a  little  upon  the  legislative  action  or  inaction  of 
Great  Britian  and  the  United  States.  An  abundant 
harvest  throughout  England  and  the  Continent  might 
make  marvellous  changes.  The  reformation  of  the 
British  land  laws  would  set  the  wheels  of  a  trade 
revolution  in  motion.  And — a  last  suggestion —  if 
the  American  farmer  does  not  soon  find  out  that  he 
pays  a  heavy  percentage, — not  less  than  forty  per  cent 
average, — out  of  his  farm  profits  for  the  goods  which 
come  from  abroad,  he  will  have  to  learn  it  to  his  cost. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

IRELAND;  HER  LAND  TROUBLES  AND  THEIR  ORIGIN. 

"  Ever  to  moil,  ever  to  toil,  that  is  your  social  charter. 
And,  city  slave  or  peasant  serf,  the  toiler  is  its  martyr." 

Charles  Gavan  Duffy. 

Early  Irish  tenurk — Plunder  of  the  land  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan WARS — The  cromwellian  settlement — Religious 

PERSECUTIONS — ENGLAND'S   OPPRESSIVE   TRADE  POLICIES — SUP- 
PRESSION  OF    IRISH    INDUSTRY   AND    COMMERCE. 

THE  noise  of  an  agricultural  if  not  an  agrarian 
conflict  comes  over  the  water  from  Ireland.  It 
concerns  chiefly  the  freedom  of  land.  To  most 
Americans  it  conveys  hardly  a  more  definite  idea 
than  that  darted  into  the  mind  by  a  sudden  clamor 
arising  in  the  night.  We  hear  of  failing  crops  and 
heartless  landlords ;  of  extortionate  rents  and  des- 
potic agents  ;  of  barbarous  evictions,  of  broken  fam- 
ilies, of  starvation,  of  brutality,  of  despair,  of  mur- 
der. We  read  of  seditious  gatherings,  because  of 
the  land  system.  A  whole  people  is  writhing  under 
a  tyranny  that  proceeds  from  the  land  system.  Mul- 
titudes are  ready  to  pour  out  blood  and  treasure  to 
overturn  the  land  system  ;  and  one  of  the  proud- 
est nations  of  the  earth  is  sending  out  spies,  rein- 
forcing its  barracks,  imprisoning  orators,  dispersing 
meetings, — that    the    threatened    outbreak    may  be 


IRELAND;  HER  LAND    TROUBLES.  63 

nipped  in  the  bud  or  provoked  to  a  premature  de- 
monstration. 

WKat  does  it  mean  ?  Many  there  are  who  quote 
with  a  laugh  :  "  An  Irishman  is  never  at  peace 
unless  he  is  fighting."  And  with  this  small  witti- 
cism, the  blackest  page  in  the  history  of  civilized 
times  is  complacently  folded  down  ;  and  the  anguish 
which  has  torn  the  heart  of  Ireland  for  centuries,  is 
described  as  "  the  national  spirit  of  restlessness  and 
discontent."  The  red  story  of  the  English  conquest, 
with  its  sequel  of  pillage  and  oppression,  is  hidden 
from  sight,  while  the  despoiled  victims  are  reviled 
and  ridiculed  for  their  unthrifty  ways  and  their  tur- 
bulent temper.  "  The  Irish  are  never  quiet.  If  it 
were  not  an  agrarian  uprising  it  would  be  something 
else ;  anything,  so  long  as  there  is  chance  of  riot 
and  of  curses  upon  Britain." 

The  very  prevalent  opinion — prevalent  not  only 
among  the  conservative  elements  of  England,  but  in 
the  United  States  as  well,  where  such  ignorance  of 
Ireland's  bitter  struggles  is  inexcusable — is  right  in 
one  particular  and  only  one  :  the  strife  that  is  now 
running  to  its  crisis  is  not  an  exceptional  outburst. 
It  is  but  a  link  in  the  chain  of  insurgent  efforts  that 
have  made  up  the  history  of  Ireland  from  the  day 
when  Henry  VII.  began,  and  Elizabeth  completed, 
the  subjugation. 

An  adequate  recital  of  the  centuries  of  Ireland's 
ills  is  here  clearly  impracticable ;  but  there  can 
be  no  understanding  of  the  present  facts  of  the 
land  troubles,  much  less  of  the  burning  feelings 
which  lie  back  of  all  Irish  complainings,  without  an 


/ 


64  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

intelligent  regard  for  the  historical  roots  of  the  ex- 
isting order,  or  disorder. 

The  Early  Land  System. 

Under  the  ancient  system,  established  by  the 
Brehon  laws,  the  holding  of  land  in  Ireland  was 
communistic.  The  tribal  chiefs  were  not  the 
owners,  but  the  guardians  of  the  soil.  The  hum- 
blest member  of  the  clan  was  a  co-proprietor  with 
the  proudest ;  and,  while  subject  to  tribute,  he  could 
not  be  ejected.  The  chiefs,  moreover,  were  elected 
by  the  common  voice,  although  the  field  of  choice 
was  limited  to  certain  families.  Hundreds  of  years 
ago,  then,  in  as  high  a  degree  of  development  as  was 
permitted  by  the  age,  and  in  a  land  where  St.  Patrick 
was  the  patron  of  education,  Ireland  possessed  the 
two  great  institutions  for  which  her  noblest  sons  have 
given  their  lives  in  vain  :  republican  government  and 
secure  tenure  for  all  upon  the  soil  of  their  country. 

English  Rapacity. 
These  institutions  were  broken  up  by  England,  by 
the  simple  processes  of  murder  and  confiscation.  The 
Elizabethan  wars,  by  which  English  dominion  in  Ire- 
land was  first  made  an  actuality,  were  wars  of  plunder. 
They  are  incomprehensible  as  wars  of  political  ambi- 
tion ;  and  the  common  theory  of  religious  fanaticism 
breaks  down  utterly  before  the  facts  of  the  loyalty  of 
the  most  powerful  Catholic  localities  and  the  presence 
of  Catholics  in  English  armies.  The  motive  was  the 
seizure  of  the  lands,  the  enrichment  of  the  Queen's 
favorites,  by  the  robbery  of  a  people  who  might  be 


IRELAND  ;  HER  LAND  TROUBLES.  65 

crushed  beyond  possibility  of  retaliation.  The  design 
was  carried  out  in  the  spirit  of  its  conception.  The 
march  of  victory  was  characterized  by  atrocities  that 
capped  the  excesses  of  Alva  and  by  sufferings  that 
have  no  parallel,  except  within  the  walls  of  falling 
Jerusalem. 

When  resistance  was  at  an  end,  when  massacre, 
burning  and  starvation  had  reduced  the  people  to 
the  submission  of  despair,  the  purpose  of  the  in- 
vaders became  even  more  obvious.  Charges  of  trea- 
son were  fabricated  against  the  chiefs,  and  execu- 
tions made  an  easy  road  to  the  acquirement  of  rich 
acres.  The  rights  of  the  clansmen  were  ignored. 
They  were  the  true  owners  ;  but  since  it  would  have 
been  tedious  to  await  their  extermination,  the  ready 
plan  was  adopted  of  regarding  the  chief  as  the  pro- 
prietor, and  putting  him  to  death  to  make  room  for 
the  English  adventurer. 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  English  titles  to  Irish 
land.  Such  was  the  fountain  of  those  "  rights  of 
property"  of  which  we  now  hear  so^much,  and  the 
infringement  of  which  by  a  hair's  breadth  is  so  fla- 
grant a  crime !  Following  the  confiscation  by  the 
sword  and  the  gallows,  came  legal  juggles.  Under 
them  robberies  almost  incredible  were  perpetrated, 
in  the  name  of  justice.  Then,  indeed,  entered  re- 
ligious zeal ;  yet  so  mixed  and  inwoven  with  a 
rapacity  for  land  forfeitures  as  to  deprive  it  of  the 
grim  dignity  which  church  persecution  has  often 
manifested. 

I  have  not  space  to  follow  out  the  sorrowful 
tale;  the  inquisitions  of  Wentworth,  the  confiscations 


V 


66  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

of  Charles,  the  land-jobbing  of  the  Lord  Justices, 
and  the  furious  agrarian  outbreak  of  1641.  Neither 
can  I  dwell  on  the  horrors  of  the  war  which  ensued 
under  Cromwell,  and  which  resulted  in  the  extirpa- 
tion of  more  than  a  third  of  Ireland's  population, 
the  banishment  of  forty  thousand  of  her  able  bodied 
men,  the  exportation  of  hundreds  of  women  and 
children  to  slavery  and  baser  fates  and — inevitable 
factor! — the  confiscation  of  three-fourths  of  the  soil. 
In  another  forum,  during  the  civil  war,  when  the 
question  was  practically  presented  for  legislation,  I 
amply  discussed  this  painful  subject  of  confiscation. 
It  is  to  me  infandum  dolorem. 

The  Origin  of  Absenteeism. 

But  here  a  line  of  departure  must  be  marked  in 
the  land  tenure.  The  Cromwellian  Settlement  fixed 
upon  Ireland  that  curse  of  foreign  ownership  of  the 
soil  which  has  made  her  politically  an  outcast  and 
socially  a  slave.  The  three  richest  counties  were 
given  over  to  English  money-lenders  and  military  ad- 
venturers ;  and  the  Irish  owners, — whether  guilty  of 
rebellion  or  not, — were  deprived  of  their  estates,  and 
driven  upon  reservations  in  rocky  and  desolate 
Connaught.  An  assault  was  made  on  this  settle- 
ment, it  is  true,  during  the  brief  period  of  Jacobite 
hopes,  but  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  put  an  end  to 
that,  and  fresh  confiscations  welded  the  last  links  of 
Ireland's  slavery. 

Religious  Persecutions. 
A  century  of   relentless    persecutions  followed. 


IRELAND  i  HER  LAND  TROUBLES.  6/ 

How  were  they  justified  ?  By  a  mockery.  They 
were  justified  as  the  will  of  Heaven  for  the  overthrow 
of  a  corrupted  church, — yet  directed  with  singular 
efficiency  to  the  material  advantage  of  Englishmen 
and  the  plunder  of  the  native  Irish.  Not  to  mention 
severer  laws,  which  operated  to  drive  the  people  into 
exile,  there  were  such  direct  attacks  upon  property 
as  these :  Catholics  could  not  dispose  of  their  lands 
by  sale,  mortgage  or  bequest ;  they  were  cut  off,  in 
inheritance  from  Protestant  relations  ;  they  could 
not  lease  land  for  more  than  thirty-one  years  ;  they 
were  prohibited  from  making  more  than  a  certain 
rate  of  profit  in  farming ; — and  if  they  dared  to 
prosper  above  the  limit,  their  leases  were  forfeit  to 
the  spy  who  discovered  the  fact. 

While  agriculture  was  thus  made  shameful  and 
barren  to  them,  laws  without  number  were  enacted, 
barring  them  from  every  trade  which  offered  hope  of 
remuneration. 

Irish  Industries  Crushed. 
Struggling  under  these  complications  of  religious 
disabilities,  the  Irish  nevertheless  began  to  find  new 
openings  for  their  industrial  energy.  They  began  to 
rival  the  English  in  the  products  of  the  pasture. 
Then  England  hardened  her  heart,  and  stretched  out 
her  hand  to  crush  that.  "  Protection  "  to  her  own 
people  was  then  the  plea.  The  slavery  of  Ireland 
and  her  land  was  not  enough.  English  natural  rights 
were  shackled  for  the  benefit  of  the  few.  Absolute 
prohibition  was  enacted  against  the  importation  into 
England  of  Irish  cattle,  sheep,  swine,  beef,    pork, 


68  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

mutton,  butter  and  cheese.  Then  the  people  turned 
to  their  magnificent  harbors  and  the  open  sea ;  and 
straightway  they  were  forbidden  the  colonial  carry- 
ing trade.  They  established  sheep-walks  and  demon- 
strated their  ability  to  compete  with  the  world  in 
the  manufacture  of  wool  ;  and  the  British  Parliament 
imposed  duty  upon  duty,  and  finally,  by  an  utter 
prohibition  of  exports,  annihilated  the  industry  alto- 
gether. 

"  An  Irishman  is  never  at  peace  unless  he  is 
fighting."  What  else  was  there  left  to  do  ?  What 
wonder  that  the  "  Rapparees "  took,  by  so-called 
violence,  that  which  would  have  been  theirs  by  just 
inheritance  ? — that  the  "  Whiteboys  "  matched  the 
British  "  protective  "  tariffs  by  slaughtering  the  cat- 
tle of  the  foreign  stock-breeders  ? — that  the  "  Hearts 
of  Steel  "  opposed  the  rapacity  of  the  English  land- 
lords by  lynching  and  intimidation  among  the  relent- 
less agents?  This  was  the  rude  justice  which  ra- 
pacity provoked  and  which  ages  of  wrong  seem  to 
justify. 

A  Military  Argument. 

It  is  a  note-worthy  fact  that  the  first  break  in 
this  crushing  rule  was  a  consequence  of  England's 
own  heartlessness.  When  the  French  threatened 
invasion,  Ireland  looked  to  the  country  that  had 
drained  her  resources  for  aid.  She  was  told  she 
must  defend  herself.  The  result  was  the  Irish  Vol- 
unteers !  It  was  with  this  army  in  the  background 
as  a  menace,  that  Grattan,  Charlemont  and  Flood 
were  enabled  to  secure  a  partial  independence  of  the 


IRELAND ;  HER  LAND  TROUBLES.  69 

Irish  legislature  and  the  repeal  of  certain  acts  of  dis- 
abilities against  Catholics. 

"  The  Irish  love  fighting."  Why  should  they 
not  ?  The  rebellion  of  '98,  ending  in  torture  and 
butchery,  and  costing  fifty  thousand  Irish  lives,  at 
least  accomplished  this :  that  it  testified  to  the  un- 
quenchable spirit  of  the  land  and  compelled  English- 
men at  last  to  consider  whether  a  policy  of  unremit- 
ting oppression  was  altogether  profitable.  It  was 
said  :  *'  Insurrection  is  meat  and  drink  to  them." 
The  mad  emeuie  of  Robert  Emmet  was  to  English- 
men but  the  rash  fury  of  the  patriotic  zealot.  It 
was  sedition,  perhaps.  But  whatever  it  may  be 
called,  it  was  out  of  that  spirit  that  the  formidable 
body  of  conspirators,  the  Catholic  association,  arose. 
It  beat  down  opposition  in  the  pathway  of  O'Con- 
nell  and  put  into  his  hands  the  weapons  with  which 
he  achieved  the  "  Act  of  Catholic  Emancipation." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  the  present  purpose  to  pur- 
sue the  historical  thread  to  the  end.  I  grant  for  the 
moment,  all  that  can  be  claimed  of  the  more  reason- 
able treatment  of  Ireland  during  the  last  fifty  years. 
It  has  not  been  enough  to  do  away  with  the  evils 
of  the  past,  much  less  to  obliterate  the  memories 
which  make  the  English  flag  hated  through  all  Ire- 
land. Fifty  years,  even  were  they  crowded  with  the 
.wisest  legislation,  could  not  repair  the  work  of  thirty 
generations  of  destruction. 


CHAPTER   X. 

IRISH   LAND — WRONGS  AND   REMEDIES. 

Their  good,  ill,  health,  wealth,  joy,  discontent, 
Being,  end,  aim,  religion — Rent !   Rent !   Rent ! 

Byron. 

The  land  monopoly — Absenteeism — Primogeniture  and  set- 
tlements— Insecurity  of  'ienure — Discouragement  of  im- 
provements—Barriers AGAINST  alternative  INDUSTRIES — 
FkEE   land   THE   RADICAL   REMEDY, 

THE  points  around  which  the  Irish  controversy- 
rages  with  greatest  violence  are,  naturally,  rack- 
rents  and  unjust  evictions.  These  are  the  cutting 
edges  of  the  oppressive  land  system  : — intolerable  ex- 
actions of  tribute  to  an  absent  lord,  and,  on  failure 
to  pay,  the  speedy  loss  of  home  and  of  the  means 
of  livelihood. 

The  significance  of  these  points  reveals  itself  with 
difficulty  to  the  American  mind,  accustomed  as  we 
are  to  regard  land  as  free.  Why  submit  to  an 
extortionate  rent  ?  Why  accept  a  farm  without 
the  security  of  a  proper  lease  ?  The  answer  must 
be  sought  in  the  mass  of  oppressive  conditions  with 
which  the  Irish  tillers  of  the  soil  are  burdened. 
These  are  the  legacies  of  the  freebooting  thrift  of 
Elizabeth's  gallant  defenders,  of  the  pious  rage  of 
Cromwell,  and  of  the  motherly  care  of  England  for 
her  own  children  and  her  own  children's  pockets. 


IRISH  LAND—  WRONGS  AND  REMEDIES. 


71 


The  Land  Monopoly. 
In  the  first  place,  land-owning  is  a  monopoly  in 
Ireland,  as  it  is  in  nearly  the  whole  United  Kingdom. 
One-third  of  the  island  is  the  property  of  but  292 
persons.  A  body  of  744  persons  own  the  half.  Two- 
thirds  is  the  possession  of  1,942  owners,  and  vast 
tracts  of  the  remaining  third  belong  to  others  only 
under  the  nominal  proprietorship  of  long  leases. 

Absenteeism. 

Secondly :  Absenteeism  largely  prevails.  The 
landlord  does  not  live  on  the  soil  whence  he  draws 
his  revenues.  He  has  no  care  for  Ireland  except  as 
the  source  of  his  pecuniary  supplies.  He  has  no  sym- 
pathy with  his  tenants ;  he  knows  nothing  of  them, 
whether  they  fare  well  or  ill.  He  does  not  spread 
among  them — as  often  the  resident  gentry  do  in 
England — that  knowledge  of  the  means  of  prosperity 
and  comfort  which  has  always  required  capital  and 
leisure  for  its  development.  He  hands  over  his 
charge  to  an  agent — and  regards  him  as  a  good  agent 
in  proportion  to  the  bulk  of  his  returns.  He  drains 
the  wealth  of  his  lands  and  gives  back  nothing. 

Primogeniture  and  Settlements. 

Third  :  By  the  systems  of  primogeniture  and 
family  settlements,  both  the  monopoly  and  the  absen- 
teeism are  sustained  ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  land 
is  more  and  more  divorced  from  the  capital  necessary 
to  keep  it  in  fruitful  condition.  This  is  strenuously 
denied,  and  indeed  the  contrary  is  often  affirmed  ; 
but  the  logic  of  the  matter  is  simple  enough.     The 


72  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

custom  of  primogeniture — almost  as  imperative  now 
with  English  land  owners  as  the  law  previously  was 
• — puts  a  "  family  estate,"  undivided,  into  the  hands 
of  a  single  person,  without  regard  to  his  ability  to 
manage  it.  The  system  of  settlements,  charges 
and  trusts  follows  hard  behind,  to  tie  up  the  ostensi- 
ble owner,  to  interfere  with  his  actions,  and  to  burden 
him  with  payments  which  he  must  make  out  of  the 
fruits  of  the  soil  to  sisters,  brothers,  aunts  and 
cousins.  It  is  true  that  the  "  Incumbered  Estates 
Act,"  and  the  court  established  under  it,  have  amelio- 
rated these  difficulties  somewhat ;  but  they  yet  re- 
main with  a  severity  that  is  cruelly  felt  upon  so 
feeble  a  body  as  the  agricultural  interest  of  Ireland' 

Exorbitant  Rents. 

Fourth:  Rackrents  follow  naturally  from  mon- 
opoly, foreign  ownership  and  heavy  encumbrances. 
But  conditions  yet  to  be  named  give  still  great  scope 
to  the  extortionate  usage. 

Insecure  Tenure. 

Fifth  :  The  leasing  practice  has  almost  died  out. 
The  farmer  has  no  secure  tenure,  but  is  held  by  the 
landlord  or  the  agent  in  constant  fear  of  eviction. 
Doubtless  there  are  exaggerations  in  the  stories  told 
on  this  head.  But  there  is  need  of  none.  The 
kettle  is  scarcely  blacker  for  the  paint.  We  need 
not  hunt  for  authentic  accounts  of  whole  villages 
laid  waste  by  bailiffs.  It  is  no  fictitious  picture — 
that  of  the  sick  thrust  out  on  the  roadside,  and  of 


IRISH  LAND— WRONGS  AND  REMEDIES.         73 

the  aged  and  feeble  standing  on  the  spot  where  their 
dwelHng  was  the  night  before. 

These  are  they  to  whom  the  English  economists 
mildly  advise  emigration  !  "  Emigrate,  you  poor, 
misguided,  obstinate  people !  Stricken  with  pov- 
erty, hunger  and  disease,  why  do  you  remain?  See 
the  golden  fields  of  America  and  the  happiness  which 
awaits  you  there  !     Emigrate,  emigrate  !  " 

Yet  it  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  evil  to  its 
extremity.  An  insecure  tenure  is  a  constant  curse. 
It  destroys  ambition,  and  weighs  down  hope.  Its 
results  are  seen  in  almost  every  quarter  of  Ireland, 
(excepting  in  ** tenant  right"  Ulster,  where  some- 
thing like  security  is  obtained,)  in  dilapidated  build- 
ings, ruined  fields,  rust  and  neglect. 

Bars  to  Improvements. 
Sixth :  Closely  connected  with  insecure  tenure  is 
the  evil  of  the  rules  relating  to  improvements.  The 
tenant  has  no  protection.  He  improves  at  his  peril. 
The  owner  takes  what  he  may  create,  and  not  only 
that,  but  he  may  evict  him  to  get  possession  of  the 
new  advantages — or  may  raise  the  rent  as  the  reward 
of  his  diligence.  It  is  often  charged  that  the  poverty- 
stricken  condition  of  the  Irish  farms  is  an  evidence 
of  the  Irishman's  laziness.  Yet  many  a  cotter  will 
reclaim  waste  land,  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  risk  of 
having  the  good  inure  to  the  landlord  alone. 

•  No  Alternative. 

Seventh  :  The  Irish  have  no  alternative  vocation. 
England  has  taken  away  from  them  all  else.     If  they 


74  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

remain  in  the  country  of  their  birth,  they  must  dig 
their  living  out  of  the  ground  or  they  must  be  buried 
under  it.  In  the  famine  years,  which  under  this 
wretched  system  recur  with  dreadful  frequency,  they 
are  buried  by  thousands.  They  die  daily  of  insuffi- 
cient food  and  shelter. 

Let  this  review  of  the  causes  of  the  enslavement 
of  Irish  land  suffice. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  Irish  agriculture  does  not 
thrive?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  Ireland's  soil  is  de- 
pleted, that  her  people  live  in  hovels,  that  her  chil- 
dren flee  by  thousands  to  more  hospitable  lands, 
and  that  those  who  remain  struggle  in  their  discon- 
tent and  plot  revolution?  They  must  have  been 
clods  or  less  than  worms  not  to  struggle,  not  to 
conspire  for  liberty,  not  to  fight  desperately  at  every 
gleaming  of  hope,  not  to  make  use  of  every  embar- 
rassment of  England  as  Ireland's  opportunity.  The 
day  will  come  when  Emmet  will  rank  with  Kos- 
ciusko, not  only  in  the  eyes  of  poets,  who  look  purely 
to  the  nobleness  of  the  soul's  endeavor,  but  in  the 
estimation  of  statesmen  as  well,  who  will  come  to 
see  that  his  heroic  life  did  not  end  on  the  gallows- 
tree  at  Dublin,  but  remained  with  his  countrymen  to 
rouse  and  inspire,  until  the  cause  was  won  for  which 
he  suffered  a  martyr's  death. 

The  Remedies. 

Turning  now  to  the  question  of  remedies,  it  may 

be  noted  that  as  rackrents  and  unjust  evictions  stand 

first   in   the   popular    apprehension   of    grievances, 

"  valuation  "  and  "  fixed   tenure  "  are   most   promi- 


IRISH  LAND— WRONGS  AND  REMEDIES. 


n 


nently  put  forward  as  the  farmer's  rights.  By 
"  valuation  "  is  meant  a  rent  appraisement  by  arbi- 
trators, and  by  "  fixed  tenure"  is  meant  what  seems 
tantamount  to  a  transfer  of  ownership  to  the  tenant, 
subject  to  a  sort  of  quit  rent.  The  reader  will  make 
a  mistake  if  he  sets  the  seal  of  his  disapproval  on 
these  propositions  with  the  easy  confidence  of  the 
majority  of  English  and  American  lawyers. 

"  They  are  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty," say  the  men  of  law.  The  history  of  those 
rights  in  Ireland  is  a  proper  response.  But  if  any 
man  lives  who  has  not  yet  rid  his  mind  of  the  notion 
that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  an  absolute  right  in 
land,  let  him  consider  that  that  right  has  been  again 
and  again  annihilated  by  revolutions  consequent  upou 
violations  of  the  duties  of  property.  John  Stuart 
Mill  spoke  without  compunction  for  the  transfer  of 
the  land  to  the  Irish  tenants  upon  payment  of  a  fair 
valuation  to  the  present  owners  in  the  form  of  a 
quit  rent.  Clifife  Leslie  advocates  government  aid 
to  the  tenants  to  enable  them  to  purchase.  John 
Bright  has  thrown  the  weight  of  his  name  in  favor  of 
the  transfer  of  ownership,  by  legislation,  to  the  ten- 
antry. The  Landed  Estates  Court  is  a  standing 
violation  of  the  rights  of  property.  The  peaceful 
revolution  effected  by  Stein  and  Hardenburg  in 
Prussia  was  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  property  ; 
yet  it  has  left  its  leaders  famous,  as  among  the 
greatest  of  benefactors  of  the  race. 

We  need  not  be  in  haste  to  denounce  the  most 
radical  plans  for  the  reform  of  the  Irish  land  system. 
Things  cannot  be  radically  worse.     Neither  need  we 


75  FREE  TRADE  AND  FREE  LAND. 

deceive  ourselves  with  the  hope  of  peace  short  of 
the  accomplishment  of  most  radical  changes.  The 
existing  order  must  in  the  end  be  entirely  revolution- 
ized ;  those  that  till  the  soil  must  own  it;  tribute  to 
foreigners  must  cease.  The  only  question  is  that  of 
the  methods,  speedy  or  gradual,  by  which  the  agri- 
cultural interests,  and  with  them  the  whole  industrial 
estate  of  Ireland,  can  be  brought  back  to  natural 
conditions.  It  is  not  so  improbable  as  most  seem  to 
think,  that  the  British  Parliament  will  suffer  some 
bill  to  pass  cutting  off  the  great  proprietors  from 
real  ownership  in  their  Irish  estates. 

But  however  this  may  be,  the  immediately  practi- 
cal measures  are  sufficiently  an  outrage  to  the  con- 
servative taste.  If  they  are  taken,  it  will  be  victory 
enough  until  the  times  are  ripe  for  further  advances. 
These  measures  are  very  similar  to  those  demanded 
by  the  farmers  and  land  reformers  of  England  ;  first, 
the  abolition  of  primogeniture  ;  second,  rigid  restric- 
tions on  the  custom  of  land  settjements ;  third, 
security  for  improvements  ;  fourth,  cheap  and  safe 
methods  of  real  estate  conveyances.  Laws  in  these 
directions  would  militate  only  against  aristocratic 
selfishness  and  vanity ;  they  would  lead  to  stability 
of  tenure  ;  they  would  tend  to  the  breaking  up  of 
great  estates  and  the  establishment  of  that  peasant 
proprietary  which  may  yet  be  the  salvation  of  Ireland. 

In  a  word,  the  land  must  be  free — free  to  fall 
away  from  hands  incapable  of  doing  it  justice,  free 
from  burdens  which  properly  belong  elsewhere,  free 
to  receive  the  care  which  interested  and  intelligent 
culture  would  give  it  and  free  to  gravitate  toward 


IRISH  LAND—  WRONGS  AND  REMEDIES. 


77 


such  ownership,  great  or  small,  as  will  best  secure 
its  development  and  the  well-being  of  those  who  live 
upon  it. 

Free  land  in  Ireland  will  then  mean  free  industry 
and  free  trade.  Nothing  now  prevents  the  rise  of 
manufactures  and  commerce  but  the  serfdom  of  the 
masses  and  the  draining  of  the  country's  surplus  into 
foreign  coffers.  Let  the  land  be  free,  and  Ireland 
will  have  entered  the  race  for  rivalship  with  the 
richest  countries  of  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

LEGALIZED  ROBBERIES. 

A  Bread  tax,  a  Bread  tax,  will  be  just  the  thing! 
To  beggar  the  wealthy,  by  robbing  the  poor. 
To  mortgage  the  meadow,  by  stealing  the  moor. 

Ebenezer  Elliott. 

Theft  and  reprisal — "  A  free   breakfast  table  " — Mutual 

BRIGANDAGE — PaUPER   LABOR — PROTECTION   AGAINST   THE   SUN 

— Terrible  evils  of  foreign  water  power. 

When  the  law,  which  was  intended  to  prevent 
wrong, — which  is  the  asylum  of  those  who  are  liable 
to  forceful  exactions  upon  their  land  and  trade,  be- 
comes the  source  of  wrong  itself,  then,  indeed,  does 
injustice  increase  and  multiply.  As  in  England  and 
Ireland,  not  merely  is  capital  wasted,  not  merely  does 
production  cease,  not  merely  does  emigration  in- 
crease, but  even  violence  is  periodical  and  civil  war 
a  probability. 

It  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  our  time,  that  we  have 
been  undergoing  a  system  of  taxation  by  a  duty 
levied  on  imports,  not  for  the  specific  purpose  of 
revenue,  but  to  compel  the  mass  of  the  people  to 
contribute  to  a  peculiar  class, — which  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  robbery  in  the  form  of  law. 

This  legalized  robbery  is  hedged  about  witlj 
plausible  and  captivating  names.  It  is  called  pro- 
tection.    It  is  done  under  the  form  of  a  tariff — whose 


LEGALIZED  ROBBERIES. 


79 


very  title  implies  a  tax — by  bargainers  for  their  own 
private  greed.  The  catch-words  that  belong  to 
economy  should  deceive  no  one.  Protection,  taken 
at  its  proper  reckoning,  is  simply  no  protection  or 
worse.  In  Tartary  they  have  a  more  polite  way  of 
robbery,  says  M.  Hue.  They  present  a  pistol  to  the 
traveller,  call  him  dear  brother,  and  then  take  his 
coat  and  horse. 

Reciprocal  Brigandage. 

When  a  devotee  of  protection  is  driven  into  a 
corner,  he  is  very  prompt  to  make  the  confession  that 
he  simply  desires  to  reprise,  by  a  bounty  or  larceny, 
what  has  been  stolen  from  him  by  some  other  "  pro- 
tectionist." I  remember  a  congressman  from  western 
Maryland  who  begged  Congress  not  to  throttle  the 
infantile  coal  interest  of  Cumberland,  because  Cum- 
berland paid  so  much  more  for  every  other  article 
upon  which  there  was  a  tariff  tax. 

If  Michigan  can  steal  on  copper,  Maine  on  lum- 
ber, Pennsylvania  on  iron.  North  Carolina  on  peanuts, 
Massachusetts  on  cotton  goods,  Connecticut  on  hair- 
pins. New  Jersey  on  spool  thread  and  silk,  Louisiana 
on  sugar,  and  so  on,  why  could  not  Maryland  steal 
on  coal  from  each  and  all  ?  What  though  but  a  few 
reap  the  benefit,  does  it  ijot  tend  to  high  prices  and 
scarcity,  and  does  not  larceny  encourage  industry, 
and  contribute  to  abundance  ?  What  though  the 
salt  of  Onondaga,  New  York, — where  the  natural 
saline  resources  of  the  country  are  evaporated  by 
cheap  sunshine — is  made  dear  to  the  people?  Has 
not  Massachusetts  another   compensating  robbery? 


8o  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

And  while  she  gets  salt  free  for  her  fish,  is  she  not 
willing  to  see  Onondaga  have  a  protection  of  twelve 
cents  on  every  hundred  bushels  of  salt  ?  But  she 
is  not  so  content  to  see  Canadian  fish  come  to  us 
all  free !  It  is  only  a  question  of  the  relative  im- 
morality of  Bill  Sykes  and  the  Artful  Dodger.  All 
the  small  communities  of  little  production- claim  to 
be  protected  equally  with  the  grand  larcenies  of  large 
communities. 

Allow  another  illustration.  Much  has  been  said 
about  a  "  free  breakfast  table."  The  demagogic 
prejudice  has  been  afoused  against  those  who  would 
levy  a  tax  on  tea  and  coffee.  "  Let  us  at  least," 
they  say,  "sit  down  to  our  morning  meal  without 
seeing  a  tax  bill  in  every  dish  !  "  Now  a  duty  on 
tea  and  coffee  is  a  perfectly  fair  revenue  tax  ;  the 
commodities  are  not  raised  in  the  United  States,  and 
what  we  pay  goes  into  the  public  treasury  and  not 
into  private  coffers.  Nevertheless, — "  Let  us  have  a 
free  breakfast  table  !  Take  off  these  taxes  on  the 
comfort  of  the  people  !  "  The  tea  and  coffee  duties 
are  abolished  and  lo  !  we  have  a  free  breakfast  table  ! 
Have  we,  indeed  ?  Do  we  not  know  that  in  order 
that  those  who  joined  in  the  patriotic  clamor  may 
not  be  cut  off  from  their  customary  spoils,  we  pay 
duties  on  everything  connected  with  the  breakfast 
table  and  otherwise,  until  there  is  nothing  left  of  it 
that  is  not  burdened.  One  guest,  by  means  of  the 
tariff,  would  pocket  the  knife  and  fork,  another  the 
salt  and  salt-cellar,  another  the  cream  jug,  plates  and 
sugar  bowl,  another  the  cloth,  the  bread  and  potatoes, 
and  another  the  chinaware.     Some  brawny  Robert 


LEGALIZED  ROBBERIES.  8 1 

McCaire  would  carry  off  the  table,  by  a  tax  on  lum- 
ber, while  a  sly  Jean  Jacques,  to  encourage  domestic 
cookery,  slips  into  the  kitchen,  and  carries  away  the 
stove  and  coals;  and  the  food,  wherewithal  the  table 
itself  is  furnished,  is  enhanced  in  price,  by  the  lar- 
ceny on  steel  rails,  at  the  increased  cost  of  three 
thousand  dollars  for  every  mile  of  transportation  ! 
This  is  all  done  to  increase  the  general  comfort ! 
It  does  not  make  the  breakfast  table  free,  but  it 
makes  free  with  the  breakfast  table. 

It  is,  as  Bastiat  called  it,  reciprocal  brigandage ; 
and  none  the  less  so,  because  under  legal  forms.  It 
is  said  the  Devil  loves  that  cheating  best,  that  is  done 
by  statute ;  therefore  his  affection  for  this  form  of 
robbery. 

Pauper  Labor. 

Men  sound  the  word  protection  with  such  a 
voice  as  to  remind  one  of  the  Greek  tragedian  who 
spoke  through  the  mask,  and  whose  noise  was  more 
awful,  because  of  the  majestic  buskin  which  raised 
his  ordinary  figure  to  the  kingly  height  of  Agamem- 
non. In  place  of  this  loud  sounding  phrase,  the  still 
small  voice  of  reason  calmly  asks, 

"  Instead  of  treasure  robbed  by  ruffian  war, — 
Round  social  eaith  to  circle  fair  exchange. 
And  bind  the  nations  in  a  golden  chain." 

The  great  argument  used  for  protection  is,  that 
under  its  auspices,  we  can  produce  in  the  United 
States  without  using  the  cheaper  labor  from 
abroad  for  the  articles  of  our  consumption.     It  is 


82  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

vauntingly  asked  :  "  Is  it  not  obvious  that  if  the 
article  from  abroad  is  made  at  starvation  wages,  its 
importation  would  injure  trade  and  glut  the  market  ?" 

If  the  pauper  labor  of  Europe  goes  too  far,  the 
protectionist  would  not  merely  restrict ;  he  would 
prohibit.  In  that  case  he  would  illustrate  the  para- 
ble of  the  French  economist ; — he  would  close  all 
windows  and  skylights,  inside  and  outside,  shutters, 
curtains,  blinds,  bulls-eyes,  openings,  chinks,  clefts, 
and  fissures,  whereby  the  sun  enters  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  manufacturer  of  wicks,  lights,  candles, 
candle-sticks,  lamps,  snuffers,  street  lamps,  extin- 
guishers, and  the  producers  of  oil,  tallow,  resin  and 
alcohol.  In  other  words,  the  sun-beam  is  cheap 
capital  and  cheap  labor  ;  it  is  a  free  trader  engaged 
in  the  destruction  of  American  industry. 

"  No  cheap  and  plentiful  light  from  abroad,"  is 
the  cry  of  the  protectionist.  Let  us  cry  for  petro- 
leum against  the  external  competition  of  daylight. 
Light  is  an  uppish,  solar  foreigner,  and  should  not 
rival  the  coal  gas  from  Pennsylvania.  Light  is 
alien.  It  is  cheap  pauper  labor.  It  innundates  us 
half  the  time.  Your  Joshua,  who  is  a  protectionist, 
would  have  it  stand  still,  lest  coal  and  gas  be  ruined. 
The  market  for  gas,  candle-sticks,  and  gas  burners 
should  not  be  disturbed.  Oh,  no  !  for  is  not  light  a 
secret  enemy,  purchased  with  foreign  gold  ?  Quench 
it,  and  artificial  light  will  be  gorgeous  and  bountiful, 
though  dear.  How  many  domestic  industries  does 
not  the  prism  destroy?  It  saps  the  foundations  of 
agriculture ;  for  is  not  tallow  of  the  sheepfold  ?  It 
destroys  the  oil  market,  plugs  the  gushing  wells,  and 


LEGALIZED  ROBBERIES.  83 

interferes  with  transportation.  It  throws  out  of  em- 
ployment workmen  innumerable,  and  reduces  the 
wages  of  such  as  are  left.  Under  this  policy  of  free 
light,  what  becomes  of  the  whaling  industries  of 
New  England?  Who  protects  the  heroes  of  the 
harpoon  ?  The  very  bronzes,  gildings,  crystals, 
lamps,  and  spacious  saloons  of  the  rich  are  useless 
half  the  time,  because  illumined  by  the  proximity  of 
the  sun. 

We  should  build  an  opaque  roof,  ribbed  with 
steel,  over  the  land.  What  matter  the  expense? 
Every  American  coal-bunk  and  American  mine  will 
furnish  the  material  for  an  American-made  gas  re- 
tort. No  gratuities  of  nature,  no  natural  wealth. 
Give  labor  a  chance.  Let  manufacture  thrive.  Down 
with  the  sun — imprison  electricity, — and  up  with  old 
Chaos  and  darkness  !  And  while  cheap  foreign  labor 
is  forbidden  in  its  products  at  the  Custom  House, 
forget  not  also  to  bar  out  from  Castle  Garden  the 
cheap  foreign  laborer  who  comes  thither,  with  light 
in  his  eye  and  iron  in  his  blood. 

Go  to  Rochester  in  the  State  of  New  York,  and 
you  will  find  water-power  in  abundance.  It  grinds 
the  wheat,  and  makes  the  flour,  by  seeking  its  level 
through  gravity.  It  is  the  Naiad  which  whirls  the 
wheel ;  it  works  cheaply  for  the  welfare  of  man.  It 
costs  little  to  harness  it.  A  large  loaf  at  less  price 
is  the  consequence. 

But  suppose  that  water  came  from  the  Canadian 
side, — unpatriotic  water,  unglorified  hydrostatics, — 
dare  it  be  used  to  cheapen  bread  ?  Is  it  not  foreign, 
and  worse  than  foreign, — even   British ;  and  worse 


84  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

than  British, — provincial  British ;  and  worse  than 
provincial  British, — French,  and  Indian?  And  why- 
should  not  that  water  be  dammed  by  the  patriot  ? 
Why  should  we  not  catch  and  kill  the  Naiad — tear 
out  the  water  wheels,  and  insert  in  their  stead,  steam- 
engines  driven  by  Lehigh  caloric,  from  anthracite 
produced  on  our  own  soil  and  ever  demanding  pro- 
tection as  infantile,  though  planted  by  Providence 
and  the  sunshine  millions  of  years  ago? 

If  our  yearly  five  millions  of  protected  manufac- 
tures command  it,  why  not?  Give  them  the 
average  bounty  of  forty-five  per  cent !  Let  "  cot- 
tons "  call  for  the  robbery  of  thirtyrseven  per  cent ; 
for  must  not  our  people  keep  cool  in  summer,  to 
help  the  infants  of  New  England?  Let  "  woolens  " 
receive  their  fifty-six  per  cent  bounty ;  for  must  not 
our  people  keep  warm  in  winter  to  help  the  young 
industries?  Why  not?  Do  not  double  duties  give 
less  revenue?  Why  then  allow  foreign  blankets  to 
cover  Our  sleeping  children,  even  if  the  fabric  does 
pay  ninety-five  per  centum?  Does  not  this  rapine 
protect  quinine  and  give  to  ague  and  fever,  which 
periodically  visit  our  people,  fresh  vigor?  Why  not, 
then,  raise  the  banner  for  mutual  spoliations  ? 


CHAPTER    XII. 

PANICS  AND   CRISES  AS   AFFECTED  BY   FREE   TRADE. 

"  The  example  held  forth  to  us  by  the  Americans  of  strict  economy,  of 
peaceful  noninterference,  of  universal  education  and  other  public  im- 
provements, may  and  indeed  must  be  emulated  by  the  people  of  this 
country,  if  the  people  are  to  be  allowed  even  the  chance  of  surviving 
a  competition  with  that  Republican  community." 

Sir  Richard  Cobden. 

Causes  of  England's  misfortunes — Queries  for  the  American 

PROTECTIONIST — ENGLAND'S  SPECULATIVE  FEVER  — ThE  TAR- 
IFFS OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  GERMANY  AND  HOLLAND — AGRI- 
CULTURAL  DISTRESS. 

WE  have  seen  how  utterly  the  varied  policies  of 
restriction  failed  in  England,  and  how  with 
every  advance  to  liberty,  good  followed  abundantly. 
Nevertheless  it  is  urged  that  the  free  trade  policy 
has  broken  down  :  it  has  not  been  able  to  ward  off 
commercial  crises.  To  this  it  may  be  a  sufficient 
answer  to  ask,  Has  the  protective  system  warded 
off  industrial  troubles  in  the  United  States  ?  This 
question  has  more  point  than  the  other  ;  for  it  never 
was  pretended  that  free  trade  would  prevent  indus- 
trial crises,  while  the  protective  system,  in  the  ful- 
ness of  its  glory,  as  developed  in  1861,  was  ushered 
in  by  its  advocates  as  the  harbinger  and  preserver 
of  unbroken  peace  and  ever-swelling  prosperity. 
That  promise  has  come  to  nothing  and  to  worse  than 
nothing.     During  the  four  years  following  1873,  the 


86  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

United  States  has  experienced  such  industrial  throes 
as  never  racked  it  before. 

The  protective  policy  has  not  been  able  to  ward 
off  panics  and"  crises.  Yet,  perhaps,  it  has  behind 
it,  as  English  free  trade  has,  a  story  of  benefits  con- 
ferred which  must  be  reckoned  in  the  balance  of  its 
merits.  The  abolition  of  the  corn  laws  gave  the 
people  of  England  cheap  food.  Their  manufactur- 
ers, besides,  were  permitted  to  get  their  materials 
where  they  could  find  them  best  and  cheapest,  and 
to  carry  them  to  their  factories  by  the  least  expen- 
sive means  of  transportation.  They  were  allowed  to 
put  their  goods  into  any  market,  and  take  their  pay 
in  whatever  form  was  most  profitable.  What  was 
the  result  ?  Bread  was  cheap,  clothing  was  cheap, 
comfort  was  cheap.  The  capital  of  the  country 
piled  up  apace,  and  the  standard  of  living  among  the 
masses  improved  year  by  year.  Perhaps  the  Uni- 
ted States  has  benefits  of  equal  value  to  show  as  the 
fruits  of  its  protective  system.  What  can  it  ex- 
hibit ?  This,  in  the  first  place  :  that  the  protected 
commodities  (and  what  commodities  have  not  been 
protected  ?)  have,  under  an  average  duty  of  forty 
per  cent  and  more,  been  increased  in  price  at  least 
twenty  per  cent.  Putting  the  annual  product  of 
domestic  manufacture  at  no  more  than  $3,000,000, 
000,  we  may  charge  to  "  protection  "  a  yearly  tax 
on  the  whole  people  of  $600,000,000,  not  one  penny 
of  which  goes  into  the  public  treasury. 

W^ould  that  these  figures  represented  the  im- 
mense total ;  but  they  do  not  represent  one  half  of 
the  burden  and  bounty.     They  are  placed  at   the 


PANICS  AS  AFFECTED  BY  FREE   TRADE. 


87 


very  least  sum  lest  incredulity  refuse  to  investigate. 
Of  the  total  manufactures  of  the  United  States, — 
about  five  thousand  millions, — hardly  one  hun- 
dred millions  are  exported.  If  the  remainder  which 
is  consumed  here  were  imported,  the  duties  would 
not  be  much  less  than  two  thousand  millions,  (esti- 
mated exactly  at  $1,861,067,000,)  which  would  seek 
the  Treasury,  and  not  the  pockets  of  the  splendid 
paupers  who  live  upon  it.  This  is  the  premium  paid 
to  unfitness,  incompetency  and  something  which  we 
may  call  selfish  shrewdness, — the  small  cunning  which 
takes  the  place  of  wisdom. 

Meanwhile  our  manufacturers  have  been  ham- 
pered in  every  movement.  They  cannot  obtain  their 
crude  materials  where  they  can  find  them  best ;  they 
are  forbidden  to  use  natural  resources  to  the  best 
advantage  ;  they  cannot  carry  their  goods  to  the  mar- 
kets where  the  prices  rule  highest ;  they  have 
been  barred  from  some  articles  completely,  and 
forced  to  buy  others  at  such  enhanced  prices  that 
competition  with  the  free  foreigner  is  out  of  the 
question.  By  the  navigation  laws,  they  have  been 
put  at  a  distance  both  from  supplies  and  from  mar- 
kets, as  effectually  as  if  new  oceans,  or  rather 
extensive  deserts,  had  been  interposed.  Artificial 
barriers  have  been  created  to  vex  their  passage. 
The  rate  of  wages  has  been  artificially  depressed, 
and  the  working  people  have  been  subjected  to  the 
miseries  which  arise  from  violent  fluctuations  in 
trade.  Dear  bread,  dear  clothing,  dear  comfort — 
these  are  the  fruits  of  protection  ;  industries  un- 
stable  because     bolstered    up    by   changing    laws ; 


88  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

manufacturers  schooled  to  dependence  on  the  ca- 
prices of  legislation  and  the  "  shrieks  of  locality." 
Fearing  fair  competition,  as  an  invalid  fears  a  draft, 
they  have  been  limited,  where  they  have  not  been 
destroyed.  These  are  the  gifts  which  the  system 
of  bounties  to  classes  has  conferred  upon  the  Uni- 
ted States  during  these  many  years,  and  especially 
these  last  eighteen  years  of  most  faithful  and  vigor- 
ous application  of  restrictive  doctrines. 

No  doubt  such  statements  as  these  will  be  met  in 
certain  quarters  with  vehement  protest.  Will  it  not 
be  said  :  Has  not  the  country  of  late  been  advancing 
industrially  at  a  rate  unparalleled  ?  Are  we  not 
turning  out  goods  more  cheaply  than  ever  before? 
Do  we  not  pour  forth  our  products  to  the  world  ? 
Are  not  the  fabrics  of  our  factories  making  their  way 
into  the  marts  of  all  the  nations  ?  Do  we  not  send 
calico  to  Manchester  and  cutlery  to  Sheffield  ?  Is 
not  the  balance  of  trade  heavily  in  our  favor,  and 
the  drain  of  gold  from  Europe  sp  great  that  the 
financial  centres  there  are  quaking  on  the  verge  of 
panic  ?  Questions  like  these  swarm  for  utterance 
in  minds  schooled  with  the  wisdom  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  and  filled  with  the  notions  of  Penn- 
sylvania— with  th^  wisdom  which  can  imagine  a  sale 
without  a  purchase  ;  which  regards  gold  as  the  sum- 
mum  bomim,  albeit  it  cannot  be  eaten  nor  drunk, 
neither  used  for  clothing  nor  shelter  ;  which  clings  to 
the  faith  that  excess  of  exports  brings  in  the  prec- 
ious metal,  in  face  of  the  fact  that  it  does  not :  which 
so  believes  in  high  prices  that  it  puts  on  taxes  to 
make  them  high,  and  so  delights  in  low  prices  that 


PANICS  AS  AFFECTED  BY  FREE  TRADE.        89 

it  rejoices  in  them  even  when  they  are  the  issue  of 
bankruptcy. 

I  cannot  attempt  to  answer  these  questions  seria- 
tim nor  exhaustively,  but  the  fact  that  they  are  so 
strenuously  urged  makes  it  proper  to  undertake  a 
more  detailed  analysis  of  the  facts  involved  than 
would  otherwise  be  necessary. 

Turning  our  attention  first  to  Great  Britain,  it 
is  to  be  granted  at  the  outset,  that  the  last  few  years 
have  witnessed  a  decline  in  her  prosperity.  Free 
trade  England  has  not  escaped  the  misfortune  that 
has  run  around  the  globe.  In  the  United  States, 
the  crash  came  in  1873,  and  in  Great  Britain,  troubles 
followed  fast  in  1874.  Now  it  is  easy  to  say,  that 
England's  asphyxia  resulted  from  the  release  of  her 
body  from  all  ligatures;  but,  unfortunately,  it  is  just 
as  easy  to  contend  that  the  congestion  of  American 
trade  is  chargeable  to  protective  trusses  and  tourni- 
quets. Such  assertions  prove  nothing^.  Post  hoc  ergo 
propter  hoc  is  never  more  feeble  logic  than  in  the 
domain  of  economic  science.  Happily  we  are  not  re- 
stricted to  such  vague  reasoning.  An  examination 
of  the  facts  and  figures  of  English  trade  reveals  the 
presence  of  four  great  causes  which,  together  with 
others  which  need  not  be  discussed,  are  entirely 
sufficient  to  account  for  the  recent  depression : — 

1.  The  industrial  and  financial  distress  prevail- 
ing in  nearly  all  the  countries  with  which  England 
has  extended  relations. 

2.  A  distinct  speculative  stimulus  applied  to 
English  manufacture  and  trade  in  1871,  by  heavy 
foreign  loans. 


(^ 


90 


FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADK 


3.  The  increase  of  tariff  restrictions  in  the  United 
States,  Germany  and  Holland. 

4.  The  agricultural  difficulties  arising  out  of  the 
English  system  of  land  tenure,  under  stress  of  poor 
harvests  and  strong  American  competition. 

Other  causes  might  be  enumerated,  but  these 
seem  chief  in  importance.  They  are  entirely  ade- 
quate. 

To  prevent  misapprehension,  it  may  be  well  to 
say  here  that  the  case,  in  my  view  (which  I  shall 
endeavor  to  support)  is  not  nearly  so  discouraging 
as  it  has  been  represented  to  be. 

I.   The  General  Depression. 

It  would  be  waste  of  space  to  enlarge  on  this 
point.  The  facts  are  patent  and  everywhere  ad- 
mitted. All  that  is  necessary  is  to  insist  on  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  influence  as  applying  to  English 
trade.  The  relations  of  international  commerce  are 
so  intimate,  in  this  day  of  steam  and  electricity,  that 
disasters  in  one  country  are  reflected  to  all  the  others 
with  as  much  certainty  and  acuteness  as  in  the 
sympathy  of  troubles  betwixt  the  stomach  and  the 
brain. 

2.  The  Speculative,  Fever. 
•  The  year  1871  was  a  great  year  in  England  for 
foreign  investments.  The  average  minimum  dis- 
count rate  of  the  Bank  of  England, — which  was 
seven  per  cent  in  1866, — had  been  for  four  years 
revolving  around  two  and  three  per  cent.  Capital- 
ists  turned  their  eyes  abroad,  and  presently   there 


PANICS  AS  AFFECTED  BY  FREE  TRADE. 


91 


was  a  general  rush  for  foreign  stocks.  Heavy  loans 
were  made  to  the  United  States,  to  France,  to 
Russia,  to  Turkey,  to  Egypt,  to  the  South  Ameri- 
can states  and  to  India.  Nor  were  the  investors 
over  particular  as  to  the  character  of  the  security. 
They  seized  government  bonds,  state  bonds  and 
municipal  bonds  with  equal  avidity ;  they  loaned  for 
railways,  for  gas  works,  for  telegraphs — for  anything 
which  bore  the  superficial  appearance  of  legitimate 
enterprise.  In  this  sober  day,  we  do  not  expect 
South  Sea  Bubbles,  but  the  moneyed  men  of  Eng- 
land, in  1 87 1,  seemed  to  be  as  hot-headed  for  foreign 
ventures  as  a  body  of  modern  capitalists  could  well 
become.  The  results  may  be  best  exhibited  for 
the  purposes  of  this  inquiry  as  they  manifested  them- 
selves in  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  country. 

In  the  table  on  page  92  is  shown  the  course  of  the 
export  trade  of  the  United  Kingdom  for  the  past 
twenty  years.  Two  points  stand  out  clearly — three, 
I  may  say, — wave  crests  in  the  industrial  movement. 
The  high  per  centage  of  1859  ^'^^  obvious  relations 
with  the  American  crash  of  1857.  That  of  1863  sig- 
nifies the  war  disturbances,  and  especially  the  folly  of 
the  United  States  in  parting  with  its  stores  of  coin 
and  bullion.  That  of  1871  exhibits  the  influence 
we  are  considering,  namely,  the  great  loans  made  by 
England  in  that  year  to  every  needy  applicant  who 
took  off  his  hat  in  Lombard  Street.  With  the 
first  two  periods  we  are  only  concerned  as  they 
serve  to  justify  the  reasoning.  The  teachings  of  the 
latter  are  directly  to  the  point.  Heavy  loans,  heavy 
exports  ;  an  era  of  sudden  activity,  advancing  prices  ; 


92 


FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


TABLE 
Showing  course  of  export  trade   of   the  united   kingdom 

FROM    1859    TO    1879. 


Exports  in 
millions. 

Increase 

Decrease 

Year. 

per  cent,  over 
previous  year. 

per  cent,  from 
previous  year. 

1859. 

£155.7 

11 

i860. 

164.5 

5-6 

1 861. 

159.6 

3 

1862. 

166 

4 

1863. 

196.9 

18.6 

1864. 

212.6 

8 

1865. 

218.8 

3 

1866. 

239-9 

9.6 

1867. 

225.8 

5.8 

1868. 

227.7 

0.8 

1869. 

237 

4 

. 

1870. 

244 

2.5 

1871. 

283.5 

16 

1872. 

314.6 

10.9 

1873- 

311 

I 

1874. 

297.6 

4 

1875. 

281.6 

5 

1876. 

256.7 

8.5 

1877. 

252 

1.8 

1872. 

245 

2.7 

increasing  production,  increasing  prosperity;  and 
then  when  the  funds  to  be  transmitted  are  gone — 
the  figure  skips  suddenly  into  the  other  column  ; 
and  there  it  remains  year  after  year. 

Observe  that  it  is  not  contended  that  speculation 
in  1 87 1  was  the  sole  cause  of  the  continued  decline 
in  British  exports ;  but  the  table  shows  clearly  that 
it  is  one  of  the  causes,  and  indicates,  by  the  inti- 
macy of  relation  in  time,  that  is  a  chief  cause. 


DIAGRAM 

Illustrating  the  increase  and  decline  of  exports  and  imports  of 

THE   UNITED    KINGDOM,     1868    TO    iSyS, 


Mill. 
£ 

390 
380 
370 
360 
350 

340 
330 
320 
310 
300 
290 
280 
270 
260 
250 
240 
230 


/ 

/ 

\ 

^ 

_^ 

/ 

\ 

/ 

"^ 

/ 

/ 

/ 

___ 

J?^^ 

■^J 

^ 

\ 

# 

\ 

\ 

\ 

\ 

\ 

^ 

■-^ 

^ 

j?.tS. 

1 

94 


FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 


Exactly  what  has  happened  is  vividly  indicated 
in  the  appended  diagram. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  the  facts  shown  in  this 
diagram,  taken  in  comparison  with  the  bullion  statis- 
tics, give  small  support  to  the  common  theory  about 
the  "  balance  of  trade,"  and  the  use  of  gold  in  in- 
ternational commerce.  It  is  estimated  that  Eng- 
land transmitted  to  foreign  lands  in  four  years, 
1870-1873,  over  ;^ 1 00,000,000;  yet  during  those 
four  years  she  received  in  gold  and  silver  ^19, 
000,000  more  than  she  gave,  and  her  imports  ex- 
ceeded her  exports  by  over  ;^ 200,000,000. 

There  is  nothing  mysterious  in  this.  Trade  be- 
tween countries  is  exactly  what  it  is  between  indi- 
viduals. Is  it  not  a  barter  of  goods  for  goods,  with 
money  entering,  in  greater  or  less  quantity,  as  a 
medium  or  middle  commodity  through  which  the 
exchange  is  conveniently  effected  ?  The  excess  of 
imports  constantly  shown  in  the  trade  of  England 
signifies  her  receipt  of  commercial  profits  and  of 
dividends  from  investments  abroad. 

3.  Foreign  Tariffs. 

Analyzing  the  export  trade  of  Great  Britain  with 
reference  to  destination,  we  discover  that  the  dimi- 
nution distributes  itself  among  only  six  of  the  many 
lines  of  traffic.  The  year  of  highest  export  was  1872 
— ;i^ 3 14,000,000.  In  1877,  the  value  had  declined 
to  ;^2 5 2,000,000.     Total  deficiency  ^62,000,000. 

From  an  able  pamphlet  on  "  Free  Trade  and 
English  Commerce "  by  Augustus  Mongredien,  I 
take  the  following  table  : 


PANICS  AS  AFFECTED  BY  FREE  TRADE.        95 

TABLE 

Showing  the  trade  lines  in  which  British  exports  havb 
declined. 

1872,  1877.  Deficieticy 

Exports  in  Exports  in  in 

millions  millions  millions 

To  Russia ^^9.5  £t.2.  ;C3-3 

"    Germany 43.1  28.9  14. 2 

"    Holland 24.3  16  8.3 

"    United  States 45.9  19.9  26 

"   Egypt 7.3  2.3  5 

"   South  America 8.4  3.4  5 

138.5  76.7  61.8 


The  total  reduction  of  British  exports,  £62, 
000,000,  between  the  years  1872  and  1877  is  thus 
practically  accounted  for  in  the  six  lines  of  trade 
here  specified.  Is  free  trade  the  cause  of  the  decline 
in  these  directions  ?  Does  the  fall  result  because 
England  has  persisted,  since  1872,  in  a  policy  which 
she  has  pursued  for  thirty  years  ?  The  facts  lead 
plainly  away  from  such  absurdities.  A  glance  at 
the  table  on  page  92  will  show,  that  the  export  trade 
of  England  has  been  strongly  influenced  by  the  tariff 
legislation  of  the  United  States ;  the  depressing 
effects  of  the  acts  of  1864-5-6,  increasing  the  rates, 
being  most  clearly  visible;  albeit  overlaid  in  1871 
by  the  conditions  previously  mentioned,  and  influ- 
ences growing  out  of  the  Franco- Prussian  war.  Ger- 
many has  also  deemed  it  wise  to  cut  down  her  own 
trade  and  that  of  her  neighbors  by  "  protection." 
This  takes  the  two  heaviest  delinquents  in  the  list. 
Next  comes  Holland,  and  Holland  also  has  caught 


gS  FREE  LA  AD  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

the  protection  fever,  while  besides,  it  figures  in  Eng- 
lish commerce  largely  as  a  way-station  on  the  road 
to  Germany,  and  hence  shares  with  Germany  in  the 
latter's  declining  trade.  With  more  than  seventy- 
eight  per  cent  of  the  deficiency,  therefore,  protective 
tariffs  have  greatly  and  directly  to  do.  It  is  not  wise 
in  protectionists  to  point  to  the  recent  decline  of 
English  exports  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of  their 
tenets. 

4.  England's  Agricultural  Troubles. 

The  agricultural  interest  of  the  United  King- 
dom is  in  a  worse  condition  than  it  has  been  for  at 
least  a  generation.  This  point  is  discussed  else- 
where, and  I  shall  not  now  dwell  on  the  radical 
causes  ;  but  for  the  immediate  purpose,  reference  to 
the  facts  is  necessary.  Disaster  began  in  the  year 
1874,  and  ran  coincident  with  the  general  industrial 
embarrassments.  From  1874  to  1879  the  history  of 
British  agriculture  is  a  history  of  failure.  With  every 
season  things  have  gone  from  bad  to  worse,  and  the 
results  of  the  recent  harvest, — if  harvest  that  can 
be  called  which  was  but  a  scraping  together  of  what 
remained  after  seven  months  of  rain  and  lowering 
skies — were  more  discouraging  than  ever.  The  de- 
ficiency of  wheat  is  estimated  at  not  less  than  13c 
000,000  bushels  ;  or  more  than  half  the  required  sup- 
ply. The  Irish  potato  crop  has  suffered  enormous 
ravages,  the  yield  of  rye  is  poor  and  meagre,  the  re- 
turns of  farm  staples  of  all  kinds  bear  out  the  dis- 
mal tale  of  poverty.     It   is   altogether  likely  that 


PANICS  AS  AFFECTED  BY  FREE  TRADE.        97 

England  will  have  to  import  breadstuffs  this  year  to 
the  amount  of  $230,000,000. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  point  out  the 
bearing  of  all  this  on  the  general  course  of  trade. 
One  might  infer  from  some  writers,  that  agriculture 
is  an  isolated  interest, — that  the  agricultural  distress 
of  the  United  Kingdom  is  a  thing  to  be  considered 
by  itself;  that  it  has  no  connection  with  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  British  manufacturer.  But  do  practical 
men  need  to  be  told  that  trouble  on  the  soil  means 
trouble  in  the  workshop,  as  well  in  England,  as  in 
the  United  States?  I  need  not  dwell  upon  this.  I 
desire  simply  that  this  element  in  the  trade  difficul- 
ties of  Great  Britain  be  not  left  out  of  the  count. 
Let  the  amazing  fact  be  noted  that  it  was  not  liberal 
policies  in  trade  which  sent  superfluous  rain  to  the 
British  Isles.  Nor  was  it  the  protective  policy  which 
caused  the  sun  to  shine  on  the  fields  of  our  great 
West. 


Let  this  review  suffice.  The  general  commercial 
depression,  the  speculative  fever  of  187 1,  the  increase 
of  foreign  tariffs,  and  the  troubles  of  the  British  far- 
mers, are  causes  enough  for  the  decline  of  British  ex- 
ports, and  it  savors  of  reasoning  from  desire  rather 
than  from  fact,  to  charge  destructive  influences  to  the 
policy  of  commercial  liberty. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

OUR  AGRICULTURAL    OPULENCE  AND   DOMINANCE. 


Potens  armis  atque  ubere  glebae. 


Virgil. 


Our  Increasing  exports — The  protectionist  argument  not 
borne  out  by  the  facts — our  surplus  comes  from  the 
land — no  thanks  to  protection — america's  opportunity. 

THE  growing  excess  of  American  exports  over 
imports  is  the  feature  upon  which  the  boast  is 
usually  founded,  that  the  protective  policy  is  pushing 
American  manufactures  into  the  markets  of  the 
world,  and  driving  thence  the  product  of  the  English 
mills  and  furnaces.  The  reports  for  the  last  ten  years 
give  the  following  figures — excluding  the  precious 
metals,  in  deference  to  those  who  do  not  wish  to 
reckon  them  as  part  of  the  produce  and  merchandise 
of  the  United  States;  and  including  the  re-exports 
of  foreign  commodities,  that  this  side  of  the  account 
may  lose  none  of  its  advantage  : 

TABLE 

Showing   Exports  and   Imports  of   Commodities   from  and 
INTO  THE  United  States  1870-18S0. 


Exports  in 

Imports  in 

Excess  of 

Excess  of 

Year. 

millions 

millions 

Imports. 

Exports. 

1870. 

$392.7 

$435.9 

$43.1 

% 

1871. 

442.8 

520.2 

77.4 

1872. 

444.1 

626.6 

182.4 

1873. 

522.4 

642.1 

119. 6 

1874. 

586. 

567.4 

18.8 

1875. 
1876. 

1877. 
1878. 

513.4 

533- 
460.7 

19.5 

79.6 
151. 1 

257.8 

540.3 
602.4 
694.8 

451.3 

437- 

1879. 

710.4 

445.7 

264.6 

OUR  AGRICULTURAL  OPULENCE. 


99 


The  change,  then,  appeared  in  1874,  immediately 
after  the  great  crash.  Previous  to  that  year,  the  bal- 
ance was  "  against  "  the  United  States  clear  back  to 
1 861,  when  the  disaster  of  war  made  it  "  favorable  " 
by  $1,313,824.  Not,  however,  to  press  too  hardly 
on  these  disturbing  points,  I  desire  to  ask  simply, 
whether  the  financial  panic  of  1873,  ^"<^  ^^^^^  conse- 
quent withdrawal  of  British  capital  from  American 
enterprise,  had  anything  to  do  with  lessening  impor- 
tation and  increasing  exportation  ?  Has  the  reduc- 
tion of  our  National  debt — large  blocks  of  which 
were  held  abroad — by  more  than  $250,000,000  in  ten 
years,  been  without  influence  in  the  same  direction  ? 

Leaving  these  queries  to  work  out  their  own 
suggestions,  I  pass  to  particulars.  The  advocates  of 
protection  point  with  exultation  to  the  increasing  ex- 
ports of  American  commodities.  Let  us  all  exult  in 
them.  But  we  should  scarcely  attempt  to  construct 
from  the  facts  a  defence  of  the  hot-house  theory  of 
industrial  thrift.  For  of  what  are  the  exports  of  the 
United  States  made  up  ?  If  it  appear,  as  a  fact,  that 
duties  of  twenty  per  cent  on  iron,  fifty  per  cent  to 
prohibition  on  wool,  sixty  per  cent  on  silk,  and  so 
on,  result  in  heavy  exports  of  these  commodities  in 
competition  with  the  free  foreign  product,  this 
might  be  taken  as  a  justification  of  the  restrictive 
method.  (Would  it  not  show,  also,  that  the  time 
had  come  for  the  abandonment  of  that  method  ?) 
But  is  it  so? 

On  the  contrary  it  will  appear  that  eighty-eight 
per  cent  of  the  exports  of  the  United  States  repre- 
sents the  pure  richness  of  our  natural  gifts  : — the 


100  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

fat  of  the  land  ;  the  vigor  of  our  western  grain 
fields,  the  verdure  of  our  southwestern  pastures,  the 
fertility  of  our  southern  plantations  and  the  abund- 
ance of  our  Pennsylvania  oil-wells. 

In  the  appended  tables  are  shown  the  exports 
for  1879  of  the  crude  fruits  of  the  land,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  the  productions  of  our  protected  manu- 
factures, on  the  other.  Under  the  head  of  the  Land 
we  make  no  account  of  the  native  wealth  of  our 
mines  nor  of  the  splended  resources  of  our  forests  ! 
We    have    credited    to    "manufactures,"     claimed 


LAND   AND   NATURE. 

Exports  of  the  Crude  Producis  of  the  Land  of  the 
United  States  in  1879. 

Bread  Stuffs $210,355,528 

Raw  Cotton 162,304,250 

Provisions, 116,858,650 

Mineral  Oil 40,305,249 

Tobacco  Leaf   25,157,364 

Animals,  living 11,487,754 

Tallow 6,934,940 

Furs  and  Fur  Skins 4,828,158 

Oil  Cake 4,394,010 

Spirits  distilled ; 2,673.241 

Animal  Oils 2,648,834 

Vegetable  Oils 2,497,694 

Coal 2,319,398 

Seeds 2,281,828 

Naval  Stores,  (Rosin,  Pitch,  etc.) 2,260,586 

Spirits  Turpentine 2,045,673 

Hides,  etc , 1,171,523 

Other  Unmanufactured 9,092,619 

$609,617,299 


OUR  AGRICULTURAL  OPULENCE.  loi 

to  be  the  fruits  of  protection,  all  the  richness  that 
unaided  nature  has  poured  out  in  these  channels, 
that  there  might  not  be  the  smallest  ground  for  a 
charge  of  unfair  treatment.  Nevertheless,  this  is  the 
magnificent  showing  which  our  soil,  sun  and  waters 
make  ! 

Below  IS  the  exhibit  of  our  efforts  to  outwit 
natural  laws : — 

"PROTECTED"  MANUFACTURES. 

Exports  of  Manufactured  Commodities   from   the  United 
States  for  the  Year  1879. 

Manufactures  of: — 

Cotton $10,853,950 

Tobacco 3.057)876 

Wood  (including  unmanufactured) 15,624,503 

Iron  and  Steel 14,935,524 

Leather 7,769,069 

Sugar 7,086,399 

Drugs  and  Chemicals 3,098,506 

Agricultural  Implements ...  2,933,388 

Copper 2,933,205 

Ordinance  Stores 1,966,689 

Other  Manufactured 19,662,334 

$89,921,443 

How  poor,  in  comparison  with  the  land,  is  the 
part  which  manufacture  plays  in  our  exports  !  We 
seem  as  yet  to  be  trifling  with  our  opportunities. 
Where,  in  this  report,  are  the  evidences  of  that  care 
for  skilled  labor  which  furnishes  the  protectionist  so 
unfailing  an  argument?  Raw  cotton  one  hundred 
and  sixty-two  millions ;  manufactured  cotton  eleven 
millions.  Leaf  tobacco  twenty-five  millions  ;  "  manu- 


102  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

factured "  tobacco  three  millions.  Iron  and  steel 
fifteen  millions  !  There  was  almost  as  much  cheese 
exported  as  that, — ^twelve  millions;  there  was 
twenty-two  millions  worth  of  lard  sent  abroad,  and 
of  bacon  and  hams  fifty-one  millions.  Where  is  the 
heavily  protected  wool  interest?  It  is  hiding  away 
among  "other  manufactured  articles"  with  a  shiver- 
ing figure  of  $346,733.  The  produce  of  the  dairy 
mates  it  fifteen  times  over — butter  $5,421,205. 

A  closer  examination  points  the  conclusion  with 
still  greater  emphasis.  From  an  exhibit  of  the  prin- 
ciple lines  of  increase  of  our  exports,  I  compile  the 
following  instructive  table. 

TABLE 

SHOWING   INCREASE  OF  EXPORTS  DURING  TEN  YEARS. 

1S69.  1879. 

Exports  in  Exports  in  Increase 

Commodities.                                millions.  millions.  percent. 

Leather $3  $6.8  2166 

Animals 0.9             II. 5  I177 

Sugar..., 0.5               6.1  I120 

Copper  and  Brass 0.4               3.  650 

Fruits 0.3               1.9  533 

Provisions 29.6  1 16. 9  294 

Breadstuff's 53-7  210.3  291 

Agricultural  Implements . .        i .                 2.9  190 

Tallow 2.4              6.9  187 

Cotton 5.8             10.8  86 

Coal 1.5               2.3  53 

Iron  and  Steel 9.9             12.7  42 

Crude  commodities,  we  see  again,  appear  with 
overshadowing  conspicuousness.  The  vaunted  in- 
fluence of  protection  vanishes  away  before  the  mag- 


OUR  AGRICULTURAL  OPULENCE.  103 

nitude  of  the  figures.  Leather  leads  the  list.  Is 
there  any  thanks  to  the  tariff  for  that  ?  The  leather 
men  well  know  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  exten- 
sion of  their  trade  is  the  system  which  cuts  them  off 
from  foreign  hides,  and  prevents  their  taking  their 
pay  in  such  commodities  as  foreigners  have  to  offer. 
Animals  come  next ; — surely  not  because  they  were 
suckled  on  protection  pap.  Then  sugar,  an  interest 
confessedly  restrained  by  the  duties  on  the  raw  ma- 
terial. Next  stands  copper — a  monumental  fraud  in 
the  protective  category  of  frauds.  Why,  indeed, 
should  the  export  of  copper  not  increase?  Our 
copper  mines  are  so  full  even  to  bursting,  that  to 
keep  up  the  price,  our  protected  copper  men  sell 
their  surplus  abroad  for  less  than  they  will  sell  it  to 
the  patriots  who  support  the  "  American  system." 
Fruits  stand  next  in  the  list : — oranges  have  been 
allowed  to  grow  in  the  sun ;  the  dried-apple  indus- 
try has  not  been  "  fostered  "  in  the  alkali  fields  of 
Nevada,  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  through  the  list. 
Its  signification  is  plain  enough ;  and  the  disciple 
of  the  forcing  system  in  industry  is  welcome  to 
whatever  comfort  he  may  there  find. 

I  will  add  but  one  bit  more.  Iron  and  steel  are 
credited  with  an  increased  export  of  forty-two  per 
cent.  It  is  a  poor  little  figure  to  pounce  upon,  but 
a  study  of  it  is  suggestive.  The  quantity  of  pig- 
iron  produced  in  the  United  States  from  1869  to 
1878,  inclusive  (reports  for  1879  ^^^  "^^  at  hand), 
was  19,984,715  tons;  the  quantity  "retained  for 
home  consumption"  was  2 1 ,206,404  tons.  Deficit 
to  be  made  up  by  importation  1,221,689  tons.     The 


I04  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

statistics  of  steel  and  iron  railroad  bars  make  a  like 
record  ;  production  6,290,765  tons  ;  "  retained  for 
home  consumption,"  8,739,617 — deficit  supplied  by- 
foreigner,  2,448,852  tons.     Comment  is  superfluous. 

There  are  a  variety  of  lessons  which  might  be 
drawn  from  the  exhibit  of  the  preceding  pages.  I 
propose  to  confine  myself  for  the  present  to  one.  A 
wise  man,  if  he  finds  that  he  prospers  exceedingly  as 
a  carpenter,  does  not  therefore  bend  his  energies  in 
the  direction  of  blacksmithing.  England  will  make 
a  great  mistake  if,  as  is  possible,  and  as  has  been  pro- 
posed in  Parliament,  she  re-enacts  her  corn  laws  or 
laws  of  a  like  nature.  The  United  States  will  make 
a  great  mistake,  if  she  does  not  seize  the  opportunity 
which  recent  years  have  pressed  upon  her  with  almost 
imperative  vehemence,  and  expand  her  exports,  in  the 
only  way  in  which  they  can  be  expanded  through 
the  agency  of  laws — namely,  by  reducing  those  laws 
to  a  minimum,  by  the  repeal  of  obnoxious  features ; 
by  removing  restrictions,  by  taking  down  barriers. 
The  merchant  of  Venice,  when  he  sent  out  his  vessels 
to  trade  in  the  Levant,  did  not  straightway  cause 
torpedoes  to  be  sunk  in  the  harbor  against  their 
return,  nor  devise  appliances  to  impede  the  home 
voyage,  much  less  add  pirate  crafts  to  the  risks  of 
the  sea  voyage. 

This  was  not  the  custom  of  benighted  Venice. 
It  is  the  "  American  system."  And  it  has  been 
the  American  system  hitherto,  because  American 
producers  have  not  looked  abroad,  being  blessed 
with  such  bountiful  markets  within  their  own  bor- 
ders.    But  now  they  are  turning  their  eyes  in  earnest 


OUR  AGRICULTURAL  OPULENCE.  105 

to  the  marts  of  Mexico  and  South  America  and 
Asia, — even  to  the  great  trade  centers  of  England 
and  the  Continent.  They  will  never  reach  them, 
except  they  agree  to  those  relations  of  reciprocity 
which  are  the  very  stimulus  and  essence  of  trade. 
In  vain  does  our  State  Department  collect  its  statis- 
tics, showing  new  markets  and  human  needs,  yet 
unsupplied  by  our  skill  and  labor ;  in  vain,  unless 
mutuality  is  to  be  observed. 

Let  us  narrow  the  field  of  observation  still  more. 
The  United  States  should  aim  to  supply  Great  Brit- 
ain and  Ireland  with  the  great  bulk  of  her  food  sta- 
ples ;  and  Great  Britain  should,  nay,  must,  modify 
her  agriculture  to  the  new  conditions,  and  direct  her 
displaced  labor  into  more  remunerative  channels. 
It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  present  relation 
of  American  competition  to  British  agriculture  is  a 
transient  one.  True,  the  bearing  of  that  competi- 
tion is  greatly  intensified  bypassing  causes  ;  but  be- 
neath all  surface-movements,  the  free  soil  of  the 
States  is  pressing  the  hampered  and  contracted 
ground  of  England  to  the  wall,  so  far  as  meat  and 
bread  stuffs  are  concerned.  The  best  authorities 
declare,  that  an  English  farmer,  under  the  most  fa- 
vorable circumstances,  cannot  live  under  a  smaller 
price  for  wheat  than  $1.40  a  bushel.  But  American 
wheat  can  be  landed  in  Liverpool  with  a  good  profit 
at  $1.15.  It  is  useless  to  expect  any  substantial 
change  in  this  field  of  rivalry  from  the  reform  of  the 
British  land  laws.  It  is  certainly  true  that  those  laws 
are  a  great  burden  to  the  British  farmer.  They  pre- 
vent him  from  owning  the  land.     They  pile  upon 


I06  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

him  an  exorbitant  rent.  They  bar  him  from  im- 
provements. They  shackle  him  with  arbitrary  rules 
of  management.  But  when  they  are  done  away  with, 
—if  that  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  struggle, — it 
would  seem  that  the  '•  large  farm  "  dogma  will  be 
done  away  with  also,  and  unprofitable  grain  fields 
will  be  turned  to  dairy  and  garden  production,  to  the 
discomfiture  of  the  Frenchmen  who  now  thrive  upon 
English  obstinacy. 

Then  will  come  America's  opportunity. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

FREE  TRADE  FOR   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

"  All  interchange  is  in  substance  and  effect  barter :  he  who  sells 
his  productions  for  money,  and  with  that  money  buys  other  goodsj 
really  buys  those  goods  with  his  own  produce.  And  so  of  nations  : 
their  trade  is  a  mere  exchange  of  exports  for  imports  ;  and  whether 
money  is  employed  or  not,  things  are  only  in  their  permanent  state 
when  the  exports  and  imports  exactly  pay  for  each  other. 

"  When  this  is  the  case,  equal  sums  of  money  are  due  from  each 
country  to  the  other  ;  the  debts  are  settled  by  bills,  and  there  is  no 
balance  to  be  paid  in  the  precious  metals.  The  trade  is  in  a  state 
like  that  which  is  called  in  mechanics  a  condition  of  stable  equili- 
brium."— Mill's  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ.,  Cap.  21. 

The  needs  of  other  lands — Our  ability  to  supply  them — 
Who  the  tariff  tinkers  are — Inconsistency  of  protec- 
tionists— The  patient  tax-payer — Conditions  of  reform. 

AMONG  the  economic  principles  which  the  Corn 
.  Law  discussion  emphasized,  was  the  funda- 
mental truth  that  trade  is  barter  ;  exchange  of  goods 
for  goods.  It  is  undeniable  that  without  imports 
there  can  be  no  exports  and  vice  versa.  Moreover 
there  is  no  economy  in  exporting  as  much  as  we  can, 
and  bringing  nothing  back,  except  money.  Trade 
will  cease,  if  there  be  not  real  compensations.  Eng- 
land needed  corn  ;  and  when  the  law  denied  her  the 
right  to  obtain  that  corn  in  exchange  for  the  pro- 
ductions of  her  mills,  her  activity  declined,  the  fac- 
tories failed  to  send  forth  their  abundance.  There 
must  be  two  parties  to  be  benefitted,  otherwise  trade 


I08  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE 

will  die.  Increase  of  exports  means  increase  of  im- 
ports ;  to  have  the  one  you  must  have  the  other. 
The  time  has  come,  and  fully  come,  when  this  plain 
truth  must  be  applied  to  the  industry  and  commerce 
of  the  United  States.  The  scope  which  it  has,  or 
may  have,  can  hardly  be  imagined  by  one  who  has 
not  before  him  the  facts  of  our  resources  and  the 
needs  of  other  countries. 

Our  Main  Stay. 

As  agriculture  must  always  be  the  basis  of  our 
prosperity  and  the  chief  vocation  of  our  people  ;  as 
its  resources  have  relieved  us  from  panics  and  re- 
vived our  trade  ; — there  is  no  solution  of  questions 
as  to  our  foreign  commerce  which  does  not  make 
our  agriculture  the  chief  factor. 

It  is  scarcely  thirty  years  since  we  imported 
wheat  from  the  Black  Sea ;  and  men  are  living  who 
remember  bread  riots  in  our  cities.  Now  it  is  a 
matter  of  discussion,  whether  this  year  our  surplus 
crop  of  wheat  alone  will  be  160,000,000  or  200,000- 
000  bushels.  This  year  our  production  will  be  even 
larger  than  last.  Within  two  years,  there  has  been 
an  increase  of  one  fifth  of  our  wheat  acreage.  Ex- 
perts count  upon  a  wheat  yield  of  420,000,000  bush- 
els. Deducting  for  seed  and  home  consumption, 
and  for  the  quantity  left  over  from  last  year,  we 
shall  have  200,000,000  bushels  for  export.  This  will 
bring  to  us,  say  $150,000,000  or  more  ;  but  will  other 
countries  continue  this  one-sided  cash  trade  ?  Will 
they  always  pay  us  the  cash  ;  or  must  we,  to  hold 
this    splendid    prize,  cultivate   mutuality?      There 


FREE  TRADE  FOR  THE  UNITED  STATES.     109 

are  many  capricious  contingencies  of  sun  and  sky, 
in  connection  with  our  foreign  grain  trade.  Is  it 
not  wisdom  to  begin  the  barter, — if  not  directly, 
commodity  for  commodity,  then  with  the  money 
received  for  our  grain  ;  buying  the  goods  we  need,  in 
the  best  and  cheapest  markets, — and  thus  keep  our 
customers  and  improve  our  custom  ? 

We  need  not  consult  our  consular  reports  to  as- 
certain our  trading^  energies.  When  our  farmers  are 
carrying  oat-meal  from  Iowa  to  Scotland  and  beef 
from  Texas  to  England ;  when  stock  on  the  hoof 
never  stops  till  it  lands  in  Europe  on  a  through  bill 
of  lading, — we  are  certain  that  the  smallest  elements 
of  our  farm  product  are  seeking  a  profitable  market. 

Room  for  "  Fuller  Trade." 
What  is  needed  for  the  development  and.  in- 
crease of  our  land  and  trade  is  the  capital  relief 
which  freedom  gives.  Then  we  may  study  with 
profit  the  returns  of  other  lands,  made  under  consu- 
lar regulations.  Then  authoritative  data,  as  to  the 
wants  of  different  peoples,  as  to  their  markets,  and 
the  best  means  of  reaching  them,  become  doubly 
useful. 

In  vain  does  the  eloquent  head  of  the  State 
Department  advise  with  chambers  of  commerce  for 
a  "  full  trade,"  with  museums  of  samples  for  its 
guidance.  These  are  well  enough  ;  but  they  will 
always  fail  until  the  gyves  are  removed  from  com- 
merce. It  is  a  provocation,  a  tantalization,  to 
spread  out  temptingly  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  as 
our  consular  reports  do, — and  yet  know  that  trade 


1 10  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

must  come  home  empty  and  bankrupt,  because  it 
failed  to  interchange.  These  reports  serve  one  pur- 
pose ;  and  I  have  reported  a  resolution  in  Congress 
for  their  more  frequent  publication.  That  purpose 
is,  to  enforce  the  argument  against  our  restrictive 
policies.  This  the  reports  assuredly  do,  inasmuch  as 
they  show  so  many  undeveloped  yet  hampered  pos- 
sibilities. 

What  a  display  they  make?  Austria  sells  us 
yearly  a  million  of  dollars  worth  of  buttons  which  we 
might  make ;  Australia  is  opening  her  ranges  and 
pastures,  to  give  us  wool ;  Belgium  imports  our  raw 
cotton  through  Germany  and  France,  to  the  amount 
of  eight  millions  annually;  Brazil  sells  to  us,  but 
buys  of  others  ;  Columbia  imports  sixteen  millions 
per  year  for  home  consumption,  and  buys  but  little, 
though  we  buy  eight  millions  of  her ;  Great  Britain 
sends  fifty  steamers  to  Chili, — and  we,  none  ;  China 
wants  our  good  cottons,  to  take  the  place  of  English 
mildewed  goods ;  Denmark  can  teach  us  dairy 
thrift ;  France, — seventy  per  cent  rural,  and  thirty 
per  cent  urban, — industrious,  provident  and  recupe- 
rative,— should  be  mutual  with  us,  as  she  was  with 
England  for  reciprocal  advantage.  Let  Guatamala 
and  Brazil  follow  the  Hawaiian  treaty ;  let  them 
remove  all  duties  on  exports,  and  their  coffee,  sugar, 
and  dye  stuffs  will  find  with  us  ample  markets.  Ger- 
many goes  everywhere  for  profit  and  benefit,  and  our 
Consuls  offer  us,  from  her,  much  technical  education 
and  enlarging  opportunities.  Greece  desires  our 
petroleum,  canned  fruits  and  sewing  machines,  yet 
our  flag  is  not  known  at  the  Pireus ;  under  our  eyes 


FREE  TRADE  FOR  THE  UNITED  STA  TES.     \  \  \ 

are  the  West  Indies  and  the  Guianas,  with  a  trade 
of  three  hundred  millions,  which  other  nations  con- 
trol ;  Italy  seeks  reciprocity  for  our  grain,  coal  and 
cottons,  but  her  silk  and  other  industries  are  barred 
here  by  a  heavy  duty  ;  the  Netherlands  are  reviving 
their  old  economies,  looking  for  and  supplying  the 
wants  of  others, — a  policy  in  which  we  have  little 
part ;  Persia  buys  four  millions  of  cottons  from  Eng- 
land, when  we  could  compete  and  furnish  a  better 
quality  of  fabrics  ;  Russia  buys  ten  times  more  from 
Great  Britain  than  from  us, — iron,  machinery,  coal, 
cottons,  chemicals  and  copper.  She  too  made  a  fail- 
ure, last  year,  in  her  crop  of  wheat,  of  21  per  cent. 
Siam  has  a  trade  equal  to  South  America,  to  which 
we  are  strangers  ;  Spain  exaggerates  our  own  system, 
by  tariff  discriminations  against  our  cargoes — fifty 
cents  per  ton  against  twenty-five  cents  on  European 
cargoes, — and  we  have  no  redress.  Sweden  and  Nor- 
way are  a  part  of  Great  Britain  as  nearly  allied  in 
trade  as  our  own  States.  Switzerland,  through  con- 
sular "  Declared  Exports "  and  return  of  imports, 
shows  a  trade  with  us  of  ten  millions  annually,  which 
has  a  large  possibility  of  increase.  Her  sister  Repub- 
lic, Mexico,  should  be  in  close  connection  with  us  by 
every  tie  of  neighborhood  and  variety  of  production. 
Why  is  she  not  ?  Syria  sends  us  a  little  olive  oil  and 
some  rags  ;  Turkey  rivals  us  in  taxing  her  own  indus- 
tries ;  Uraguay,  Paraguay  and  Venezuela,  furnish  fine 
fields  for  our  exportations,  in  return  for  their  coffee. 
Africa  is  holding  out  her  hands  unto  us,  as  to  all  the 
world,  bidding  us  share  the  opulence  which  other 
nations  with  more  liberal  ideas  will  enjoy.     Great 


112  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

Britain,  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  has  had  an  ex- 
cess of  imports  over  exports  of  $5,000,000,000  in 
merchandize,  and  yet  has  received  an  excess  in 
specie  of  $500,000,000  ;  and  retains  beside  an  invest- 
ment abroad  of  $3,000,000,000;-  while  we  have  in 
that  period,  exported  an  excess  of  $629,000,000  over 
imports  in  merchandize,  and  $788,000,000  in  specie. 
India, — like  Japan,  an  anomaly  in  trade, — exceeds 
largely  in  exports  over  imports,  and  yet  receives 
largely  an  excess  of  specie — making  a  profit  of 
$120,000,000,  one  half  of  which  goes  to  England. 

From  these  thirty  and  more  countries  upon  our 
earthjWe  may  glean  profitable  examples  for  unloosing 
the  bands  which  suppress  trade  ;  for  nothing  is  more 
certain,  than  that  these  markets  will  never  be  ours, 
until  we  learn  the  lesson  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter,  viz.  that  to  sell,  we  must  buy. 

"  Take  away  the  tariff  and  the  country  is  ru- 
ined !  "  cried  the  British  Tory  of  forty  years  ago. 
Yet  England's  industry  and  commerce  throve  and 
expanded  after  the  repeal,  in  a  measure  to  which 
history  furnishes  no  parallel.  Her  people  were  al- 
lowed to  buy  where  they  would,  and  buying  abroad 
they  paid  abroad — exported  the  goods  which  they 
manufactured  to  advantage,  extended  their  market 
over  the  world,  bought  where  they  could  buy  cheap- 
est, and  sold  where  they  could  sell  dearest. 

The  Tariff  Tinkers. 

Before  taking  such  an  extended  view  of  mankind, 
from  China  to  Peru,  it  might  be  well  to  look  closely 
at  home,  and  observe    the    microscopic  insectivera 


FREE  TRADE  FOR  THE  UNITED  STATES.     113 

which  are  preying  on  our  generous  body:  politic. 
Congress  has  forgotten  the  virtues,  the  skill  and 
frugality  of  1846,  which  enabled  us  to  attain  material 
abundance,  under  a  tariff  averaging  twenty-three  and 
a  half  per  cent  ad  valorem,  and  which  was  lowered 
in  1857,  to  nineteen  per  cent. 

To  what  a  humiliating  discussion  of  great  princi- 
ples are  we  reduced  ?  Do  the  people  arise  here,  as 
in  England  they  arose  in  1846,  and  thunder  their 
demand  as  overtaxed  consumers,  for  cheapness  and 
against  scarcity — against  high  prices  and  for  abund- 
ance ?  No.  It  is  the  manufacturer  of  this,  that  and 
the  other,  seeking  reductions  on  his  raw  materials. 
It  is  the  maker  of  wearing  apparel  who  asks  that 
the  basis  of  chemical  colors, — chrome  iron  ore  and 
bichromate  potash — for  dyeing  cotton  and  wool,  be 
placed  on  the  free  list.  Why  not  demand  freedom 
for  the  goods  themselves,  and  for  the  same  reason  ? 

The  demand  is  pitched  in  the  same  bated  breath 
for  free  salt,  sugar,  steel  rails,  paper,  type  etc.  Salt 
yields  only  $800,000  per  annum  to  the  Government. 
The  tax  on  this  article  in  sacks,  barrels  and  packages 
is  over  thirty  per  cent ;  and  in  bulk  over  sixty-iive 
per  cent.  Benton  regarded  a  tax  on  salt  as  an  im- 
pious contrivance  to  frustrate  the  beneficence  of 
God  ;  for  was  it  not  born  of  the  sea  and  sun  ?  Is 
the  tax  on  sugar  less  impious  and  flagrant  ?  The 
ad  valorem  duty  on  sugar  of  the  average  type,  which 
costs  from  three  to  four  cents  pet  pound,  is  fifty- four 
and  a  half  per  cent.  This  is  not  for  revenue,  but  to 
help  a  few  plantations  in  a  remote  section.  As 
sugar  is  only  next  to  salt  or  bread  as  a  necessity,  is 


1 14  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

it  not  time"  the  people  were  making  their  leagues 
against  sugar  and  salt  taxes  ? 

A  majority  of  the  7000  newspapers  of  this  coun- 
try have  upheld  this  bounty  system,  or  did  uphold 
it,  until  white  printing  paper  advanced  fifty  per 
cent !  Now  they  desire  the  twenty  per  cent  tariff 
on  paper  removed.  But  the  paper-makers  plead  the 
tariff.  They  say :  "  Are  not  the  materials  like  pulp 
and  the  chemicals, — carbonate  of  soda,  quick  lime, 
soda-ash  and  chloride  of  lime, — which  enter  into  the 
manufacture  of  paper,  heavily  taxed  ?  Take  that 
burden  from  us  first  ;  and  we  will  see  about  it." 
The  revenue  on  pulp  for  1878-79,  was  only  $152.80. 
Put  pulp  on  the  free  list  and  one  pretext  is  gone. 
To  be  sure  other  component  parts  of  paper-manu- 
facture pay  greater  custom  dues, — but  is  our  treasury 
in  distress  ?  Is  not  cheap  paper  a  desideraUitn  ? 
Should  not  knowledge  prevail  ?  Why  not,  then, 
remove  the  duty  ?  Why  not  "  protect  "  book  and 
newspaper-making,  and  the  manufacturers  of  paper 
also,  -by  general  repeal  ?  And  certainly,  if  the  tariff 
is  abolished  on  paper,  why  not  on  type  ?  and  if  on 
type,  why  not  on  the  raw  materials, — lead,  copper, 
tin  and  antimony,  which  compose  the  type-metal  ? 

To  gratify  a  few  firms  which  make  steel  rails — 
already  protected  by  patents  and  duties, — eighty 
thousand  miles  of  railway  in  the  United  States  are 
made  tributary,  not  to  the  treasury,  but  to  these 
firms.  If  the  price  of  steel  rails  at  the  English  mills 
is  $22.00  per  ton  less  than  at  our  mills,  do  not  our 
consumers  pay  $28.00  per  ton  more,  calculating  for 
duty  and   transportation  ?      Who   in   the   end  pays 


FREE  TRADE  FOR   THE  UNITED  STATES.     115 

this  tax  ? — who  paid  it  for  the  4000  miles  of  railway 
constructed  in  the  United  States  the  past  year  ? 
The  toilers  of  the  soil. 

The  Condition  of  Reform. 

The  consumers  pay  it  all.  They  support  the 
pauper  millionaires  who  manufacture  steel  rails  for 
them — when  they  feel  inclined.  They  are  the  vic- 
tims who  make  good  all  the  losses  arising  from  the 
misdirection  of  capital  and  labor  under  the  "foster- 
ing "  influence  of  the  tariff.  Why  do  they  not  rebel  ? 
Why  is  it  that  they  bear  all  these  burdens  so  shame- 
lessly put  upon  them,  and  yet  make  such  feeble  re- 
monstrance— if  indeed  they  utter  any  syllable  of 
complaint  ?  In  England,  indeed,  they  were  driven 
to  revolt  by  the  sharp  pangs  of  hunger.  They  were 
forced  to  cry  out — they  were  compelled  to  fight  for 
their  lives.  But  are  not  Americans  shrewd  enough 
to  know  when  they  are  cheated  ?  Must  they  be 
utterly  crushed  before  they  will  realize  that  they  are 
imposed  upon? 

"  But  why  do  not  you,  who  sit  in  the  halls  of  leg- 
islation, abolish  these  burdens  ?  " — That  is  a  question 
often  asked.  My  answer  is  that  the  people,  in  the 
flush  of  temporary  prosperity,  are  indifferent. 
Their  representatives  are  supple  before  corporate 
and  other  combinations.  These  combinations  ex- 
tend through  the  whole  range  of  protected  indus- 
tries. They  are  so  potential  that  they  have  even 
discrowned  the  rail-road  kings,  except  those  who 
manufacture  Bessemer  rails. 

Were  there  hope  of  relief  by   act  of  Congress, 


Il6  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

this  appeal  would  not  be  made  in  this  peculiar  way. 
The  people  must  send  representatives  to  Congress  ; 
and  to  be  representatives,  they  should  be  instructed 
by  popular  votes  on  distinct  issues. 

The  Corn  Laws  were  not  repealed  until  the  peo- 
ple rose  and  demanded  their  abolition.  Neither  in 
this  country,  will  the  tributes  of  the  consumers  to 
the  protected  interests  be  done  away  with,  nor  land 
and  trade  be  made  free,  until  the  citizens  combine 
against  the  combination  of  monopolies,  and  compel 
a  recognition  of  their  rights. 


CONCLUSION. 

THE  FUTURE  OF  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

"  The  grand  panacea,  which  like  a  beneficent  medical  discovery, 
will  serve  to  innoculate  with  the  healthy  and  saving  taste  for  civiliza- 
tion, all  the  nations  of  the  world;" 

Cobden's  Writings,  p  21. 

"TTT"E  approach  the  end  of  this  discussion.  Crude 
V  V  and  imperfect  as  is  this  presentation  of  the 
history  and  principles  of  free  land  and  free  trade,  the 
essentials  for  intelligent  judgment  are  before  us. 
These  pages  would  not  have  been  prepared,  were 
there  any  chance  in  the  legislature  of  this  country, 
for  the  full  statement  of  the  wrong,  and  the  proper 
remedy.  Selfish  and  local  influences  have  raised 
present  obstacles  for  such  remedial  measures.  There 
is,  however,  a  tribunal,  to  which  we  may  resort,  for 
the  initation  of  such  measures.  Who  should  ponder 
the  lesson  of  the  English  corn  laws,  if  not  the  Ameri- 
can farmer  ?  Who  should  vitally  regard  them,  if  not 
the  American  workingman  ?  Are  not  his  shelter, 
clothing  and  food  dependent  upon  them  ?  Who 
should  study  them,  if  not  the  American  manufac- 
turer? Is  he  not  deluded  into  thinking,  that  with 
a  high  tariff,  he  can  overcome  the  burdens  laid  upon 
his  raw  material ; — deluded  into  believing,  that  he 
can  enlarge  his  market  at  home  and  abroad,  by  re- 
straints on  intercourse ;  and  that  he  may  secure  last- 


Il8  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

ing  profit  by  perpetual  plunder,  and  prosperity  by 
defying  the  laws  of  nature  ?  To  all,  the  evils  of  the 
corn  laws,  and  of  similar  laws,  if  studied  under  proper 
lights,  would  appear  as  deep  and  ramified,  as  the 
liberal  issues,  which  came  from  their  repeal,  were 
wide-spread,  salutary  and  exalting. 

The  sum  of  these  results  was  not  limited  to 
Great  Britain  ;  nor  to  her  colonies,  which  are  the 
blossoms  of  her  magnificent  strength. 

Yet,  there  is  an  exception  to  this  statement.  It 
justifies  the  principle.  After  a  prosperous  experi- 
ment of  reciprocity  for  many  years,  the  disease  of 
protection  all  at  once  finds  lodgment  in  Canada. 
It  will  eat  out  the  substance  of  the  Dominion. 
Originating  in  retaliation  for  our  failure  or  refusal  to 
be  mutual,  it  cannot  live,  except  temporarily. 

The  eight  provinces  of  the  Dominion  have  about 
four  millions  of  people,  scattered  over  3,372,000  square 
miles.  Since  the  restrictions  on  trade  with  her 
have  become  mutual,  or  unmutual,  her  trade  with  us 
and  ours  with  her,  has  been  depressed.  The  excess 
of  her  import  of  merchandize  is  a  fair  test.  Its  ex- 
cess over  export  has  been,  since  1871,  $201,419,693. 
Since  1875,  there  has  been  a  marked  failure  in  her 
material  growth.  Her  statesmen  thought  that  it 
was  caused  by  tariff,  and  the  tinkering  for  its  increase 
began.  Yet  she  manufactures  little  ;  at  least  exports 
little  of  her  manufactures.  She  lacks  the  people  ; 
and  this  lack  no  high  tariff  can  supply.  She  has  soil 
enough  and  to  spare.  She  has  communications  in 
plenty  by  rail  and  river.  Why  should  she  not,  neigh- 
bor to  us  as  she  is,  not  only  send  to  us  her  fish  free,. 


FUTURE  OF  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE.   119 

as  she  is  doing,  under  treaty  and  to  the  mutual  ad- 
vantage, but  her  timber  and  lumber,  which  we  need 
so  much  for  our  shelter  and  fencing?  Why  should 
she  not  have  for  her  profit,  our  agricultural  imple- 
ments, fabrics  and  anthracite  coal  ?  Why  should  not 
her  land  and  trade  be  free  ?  She  has  abundance  of 
what  we  require  for  our  purposes.  Is  there  any  reason 
why  her  border  should  be  a  barrier  against  trade 
with  us,  which  could  not  be  urged  for  making  the 
New  York  border  a  wall  against  Pennsylvania  with 
her  petroleum,  coal,  and  iron  ;  or  against  Connecticut 
with  her  sewing  machines,  paving  stones  and  clocks  ! 
Her  tariff  for  non-intercourse,  while  it  lasts,  will  be  a 
provocation  and  incentive  to  irrepressible  smuggling. 
It  is  already  an  example  to  deter,  not  a  pattern  to 
imitate. 

The  colony  of  Victoria  is,  to-day,  a  sad  example, 
which  seems  to  have  been  disregarded  by  Canada. 
The  Victorian  tariff,  when  first  made  in  1853,  taxed 
about  twelve  articles ;  all  other  articles  being  free. 
It  was  a  safe  and  certain  revenue  tariff.  The  dues 
under  it  were  easily  and  inexpensively  collected  ; 
when  lo !  a  mania  seized  the  Victorians.  A  new 
budget  appeared,  under  the  pretence  of  making  them 
more  happy  and  content.  This  was  in  1865.  As 
has  been  done  in  the  United  States,  so  there  ;  a 
certain  revenue  tax,  as  on  tea  and  coffee,  was  reduced, 
in  order  that  a  tax  might  be  laid  on  articles  made 
abroad,  which  came  in  competition  with  the  home 
manufacture.  For  a  small  seeming  blessing, — which 
was  really  a  curse  to  the  home  manufacturer, — the 
evil  grew,  and  by'subsequent  laws,  in  1865  and  1871, 


120  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

the  burden  was  increased,  until  "  raw  materials  "  rose 
in  revolt.  The  cork  cutters  had  been  pleased  with  a 
heavy  duty  for  their  protection  ;  but  the  bottling 
trade  did  not  enjoy  the  pleasure.  It  was  not  mutual. 
The  protection  did  not  become  general ;  and,  as  a 
consequence,  the  absurdity  of  protecting  every  body 
by  a  tax  on  all,  did  not  appear  so  readily.  This 
anomaly  is  well  illustrated  by  a  clever  writer  in  the 
"  Victorian  Review,"  The  law  he  says,  compelled 
every  one  to  move  about  with  a  weight  to  his  leg  ; 
or  with  the  burden  of  the  Chinese  vender  of  vegeta- 
bles, who  is  only  able  to  carry  his  load  about  the 
streets  of  Melbourne  when  it  is  doubled, — one  basket 
before  and  one  behind,  to  preserve  the  poise  and 
lighten  the  burden  !  Extra  duties  were  placed  on  rice 
because  the  Chinese  were  its  consumers  ;  but  it  was 
forgotten  that  one  half  of  the  consumption  was  by 
the  other,  and  more  sturdy  and  adventurous  people 
of  the  Colony. 

No  wonder  that  Victoria  is  clamoring  for  a  Zoll- 
Verein  among  her  sister  colonies  of  that  remote  sea. 
Intelligent  economists  there  are  asking  for  recipro- 
city with  New  South  Wales,  as  well  as  with  other 
lands.  At  last  the  husbandman  and  miner,  as  well  as 
the  importer  and  merchant,  in  the  extremity  of  their 
troubles,  ask  that  relief  may  come,  by  a  return  to 
the  primal  virtue  of  liberal  trade.  They  are  fast 
learning  that  their  material  growth  and  gain  will  be 
greatest  to  themselves,  to  England  and  to  humanity, 
when  the  principle  of  laissez  /aire,  in  commercial 
matters,  is  the  universal  rule. 

There  will  be  no  prosperous  repose,  for  the  trade 


FUTURE  OF  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE.   12 1 

of  colony  or  nation,  under  restrictive  laws  of  trade. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  such  legislation,  as  we  have 
demonstrated,  that  it  is  uncertain  and  vacilating. 
It  gives  rise  to  perpetual  agitation,  which  is  the 
bane  of  trade.  Not  until  wrong  is  righted,  will  there 
be  content  and  stability.  This  is  the  lesson  which  a 
review  of  the  English  corn  laws  and  our  own  tariff 
legislation  teaches. 

Yet  it  may  be  said  ;  "  Did  not  England  constantly 
increase  her  capital,  population,  and  productions, 
under  that  system  ?  "  These  questions  are  best  an- 
swered by  another. — Was  not  her  wealth  greater  in 
proportion  to  her  population  after,  than  it  was  before  ; 
the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws  ?  The  comparison  should 
be  made  between  the  growth  before  the  repeal,  and 
the  enormous  growth  since.  Admitting  all  that  may 
be  said  in  favor  of  the  restrictive  system,  is  not  na- 
tional prosperity,  based  on  such  a  system  as  protec- 
tion, a  chimera  ?  Does  it  not  benefit  the  few  fa- 
vored producers,  at  the  expense  of  the  many  consu- 
mers ?  May  not  the  general  prosperity  of  England, 
even  under  adverse  conditions,  be  the  result  of  other 
causes  than  the  protective  system  ?  May  it  not  be 
a  result  in  spite  of  that  system  ? 

England  and  her  colonies  grew  great  because  of 
her  geographical  position,  her  laborers,  her  miners  of 
coal  and  iron,  her  building  materials,  her  inventive 
genius,  her  physical  situation, — which  is  not  liable  to 
extreme  cold  nor  intense  heat ;  but  more  especially 
because  of  those  political,  moral,  and  educational  ele- 
ments, which  made  her  enterprising  and  aggressive  ; 
and  without  which  all  other  blessings  would   have 


122  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE. 

been  of  minor  influence.  Obstructions  formidable 
to  ot-hers,  were  overcome  by  her  with  comparative 
ease.  Her  ability  in  the  maintenance  of  her  power 
and  credit ;  her  persistence  in  keeping  a  cruel  and 
remorseless  land  tenure  system ;  her  ability  to  pay 
high  taxes,  and  rents,  in  spite  of  monopolies  and 
protection  and  dear  food, — these  can  be  attributed 
to  other  causes  than  protection,  now  apparent  since 
the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws.  The  different  enactments 
from  1346  to  1846,  had  in  view  only  temporary  and 
transient  relief.  They  were  merely  modifications  of 
a  general  vicious  system,  whose  policy  was,  under 
one  set  of  circumstances  more  stringent,  and  under 
another  less  stringent ;  but  under  all  circumstances, 
pervaded  by  a  spirit  of  class  legislation  in  the  interest 
of  the  land  owner,  and  not  of  the  farmer  or  tenant, 
much  less  of  the  operative  in  her  factories.  Passing 
over  the  great  body  of  the  people,  the  consumers, 
she  preserved  partial  laws,  until  the  skeleton,  Famine, 
appeared  at  the  feast  to  frighten  the  isle  into  its 
propriety. 

But  since  the  liberation  of  her  people  from  tariff 
laws,  what  has  not  England  accomplished  ?  Call  the 
roster  of  her  possessions  !  Do  they  not  all  pay  tribute 
to  her  enterprise  in  trade,  and  her  ambition  in  con- 
quest ?  In  vain  does  France  construct  a  canal  at  Suez. 
England  finds  it  ready  made  ;  and  through  it,  makes 
free  her  commerce  and  her  power  as  arbiter  of  Asia. 
By  her  potent  wand  of  credit  and  wealth,  she  be- 
comes the  pacificator  of  Europe!  Thus  she  gives 
us  an  ensample,  to  be  pondered,  under  relations  that 
reach  to  the  very  heart  of  our  own  empire,  through 


FUTURE  OF  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE.  123 

the  narrow  neck  of  land  which  separates  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific. 

Is  it  not  humiliating  that  our  country, — so  new, 
exultant  and  enterprizing ;  so  justly  boastful  of  its 
traditional  and  acquired  liberties ;  and  with  such  an 
infinity  of  resources  and  energies,  shoul4  react 
toward  the  narrow  and  slavish  policies  which  Eng- 
land discarded  with  so  much  profit  and  content- 
ment ?  Do  we  not  know  that  freedom  is  the  con- 
dition of  successful  trade  ?  Are  we  still  to  learn 
that  Congress  is  no  school  for  the  merchant  to  study 
how  to  conduct  his  business  ;  or  the  farmer  his  farm, 
or  the  manufacturer  his  factory  ?  How  long  will  the 
state  or  federal  legislature  continue  to  manacle  our  in- 
dustries, by  incorporating  companies  which  may  and 
do  add,  at  pleasure  and  by  combinations,  burdens  on 
transportation,  to  render  agricultural  profits  small 
and  commodities  dear?  How.  long  will  the  legislature 
authorize  a  few  patentees  and  monopolists  of  steel 
rails  to  keep  up  for  themselves  their  exorbitant  and 
enriching  prices,  in  despite  of  the  advancement  of 
physical  science  and  liberal  ideas,  and  at  the  expense 
of  the  travelling  and  trading  masses,  who  demand 
safe  transportation  for  life,  and  cheap  freight  for  the 
necessaries  and  comforts  of  that  life  ?  Canal  facili- 
ties, local  improvements,  terminal  accommodations 
and  rivalries  of  route,  may  do  much  to  second  the 
general  welfare  ;  but  the  land,  and  the  trade  it  creates, 
will  never  be  free,  while  the  farmer  loses,  by  such 
companies,  combinations  and  "  customs,"  his  mer- 
ited reward,  and  is  forced  to  buy  what  he  needs  at  a 
higher  cost  than  natural  laws  would  compel. 


124 


FREE  TRADE  AND  FREE  LAND. 


This  is  the  logic  which  the  preceding  pages  enun- 
ciate. It  is  drawn,  not  merely  from  the  history- and 
progress  of  English  economy ;  but  from  economic 
science.  It  will  not  only  enable  us,  if  properly  crys- 
tallized into  law,  to  secure  markets  for  our  produc- 
tions in  years  of  scarcity  abroad  and  of  abundance 
here.  It  will  give  us  permanent  trade,  unaffected  by 
panics  or  seasons. 

The  triumph  of  free  land  and  free  trade  carries 
with  it  everywhere  the  blessings,  and  marks  the 
boundaries,  of  civilization.  It  gives  new  laws  fot 
the  increase  of  population  and  new  hopes  for  lasting 
peace.  It  is  a  welcomed  change,  because  it  is  the 
harbinger  of  good-will.  It  does  not  depend  on  the 
artificial  enactments  of  men ;  but  is  regulated  by 
laws  as  immutable  as  those  by  which  the  atmos- 
phere becomes  of  the  right  density.  Under  its  be- , 
nignant  influence,  the  enmities,  wars  and  brutalities 
of  men  will  yield  to  concordant  reciprocity.  The  free 
sails  of  nations,  under  its  favoring  gales,  will  wing 
forth  as  messengers  of  peace. 

So  beautiful  and  harmonious  are  the  dispensations 
of  Providence,  that  even  the  selfishness  of  man,  when 
untrammeled  by  legislation,  is  made  the  instrument 
of  his  moral  government,  and  the  herald  of  his  mercy, 
praise,  and  glory  !  It  would  ill  become  the  master 
nation  of  this  or  the  other  hemisphere,  to  be  a  lag- 
gard in  this  race  of  universal  progress  ! 

When  the  time  is  full  for  the  entire  abandonment 
of  intense  national  policies  about  trade,  and  of  the 
greedy  system  by  which  it  has  been  hampered,  the 
prophecy  will  be  fulfilled,  when  each  river  upon  whose 


FUTURE  OF  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE  TRADE.  125 

banks  man  has  made  his  domicile  will  be  as  free  as 
the  winds  and  waves  of  the  sea  to  which  it  flows,  and 
when  into  every  harbor — 

"  All  nations  enter  with  each  swelling  tide. 
And  seas  but  join  the  regions  they  divide." 

Then  will  thanksgivings  go  up,  not  from  one  land 
alone  ;  men  every  where  will  rejoice  to  be  drawn 
together, — that  their  antagonisms  may  give  place  to 
the  silken  bonds  of  amity.  Liberty  to  trade  will 
make  it  the  interest  and  delectation  of  every  nation  to 
cultivate  friendly  relations  with  every  other.  Wealth 
will  be  acquired  from  others  ;  but  not  to  diminish  the 
amount  of  their  possessions.  There  will  be  an  aug- 
mentation of  the  common  stock  to  the  detriment  of 
none.  It  will  become  the  interest  of  every  nation 
to  cultivate  and  elevate  science,  literature,  arts,  ma..  • 
ufactures,  tastes  and  amenities, — in  fine,  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  condition  of  every  other  nation. 

Not  only  will  differences  in  climate,  soil,  produc- 
tion and  society  be  obliterated ;  but  the  three  ele- 
ments of  civilization,  moral,  physical,  and  intellectual, 
will  become  larger  factors  in  advancing  our  race. 

Nor  is  this  progress  limited  in  its  effects  to  the 
external  world.  It  has  a  spiritual  significance  and 
mission.  It  commands  the  inner  and  religious 
agencies,  which  are  the  distinguishing  feature  of  our 
race  and  era.  In  making  its  journeys  around  the 
world  to  bless  it,  this  progress  carries  the  messen- 
gers of  peace  with  the  pauseless  energy  of  steam. 
Who  can  discover  the  Ultima  Thule  of  its  adven- 
tures ?     Who  measure  its  marvels  and  miracles  ? 


126  FREE  LAND  AND  FREE   TRADE. 

It  ill  becomes  us,  the  leading  power  of  America, 
to  ignore  or  postpone  the  probabilities  and  splendors 
of  such  a  future!  In  another  forum,  I  have  endeav- 
ored, imperfectly  and  vainly,  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, to  impress  on  the  legislative  mind,  the  prac- 
tical application  of  the  facts  of  this  volume.  With- 
out being  too  sanguine,  it  is  trusted  that  the  recent 
developments  of  our  agricultural  surplus  wealth,  and 
the  certain  results  to  follow  in  succeeding  years, — 
when  all  the  attractive  forces  of  our  immigration  are 
harnessed, — may  awaken  the  honest  and  dominant 
power  in  the  United  States,  (which  is  that  of  the 
farm  and  plantation,)  to  assert  its  prerogative  for 
the  supremacy  of  settled  economic  truth  in  its  inva- 
riable relation  to  human  experience  and  to  the  laws 
of  nature.  When  that  supremacy  is  accomplished, 
'■he  plough  will  be  as  free  as  the  sail,  and  the  land 
and  all  the  inhabitants  thereof  will  rejoice  in  tiiat 
liberty,  which  is  the  exaltation  of  individual  and 
national  life. 


THE    END. 


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THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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